The Factors Affecting Minorities’ Satisfaction of Health Care Service Utilizing Fuzzy Rule Based Systems

Year 2018, Volume: 21 Issue: 4, 699 - 718, 29.12.2018

Mehmet Özer Demir Murat Alper Başaran

Abstract

The aim of the study is to determine factors in health communication, when minorities are serviced in a language different from their mother tongue. Health care service satisfaction when doctor and patient speaking the common language or the mother tongue is an important area of investigation. On the other hand, when either of them speaking different languages, namely, generally patients in the minority position speaking a language different from the one doctor speaks, health communication becomes cumbersome for both sides resulting in low level of health care service satisfaction leading to ultimately wide range of complaints from minority patients. How attributes playing roles on health care service satisfaction in minority patients by modeling the relationship is conducted. Therefore, single attributes and interrelated ones are determined. The data is collected using a questionnaire form based on stratified sampling method, 387 participants are included in the analysis. Questionnaires were distributed among minorities living in Vienna area. The factors that are impact on health care service satisfaction are extracted by factor analysis. Questionnaire data collected as verbal statements representing the subjective evaluations of participants transformed into mathematical functions using fuzzy set theory enables to model attributes affecting health care service satisfaction using fuzzy logic called fuzzy rule based systems. Modeling tool called Fuzzy Rule Based Systems is a mathematical model in order to explain which single factors and/or interrelated ones having impact on health care service satisfaction are determined by employing fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic, which are the components of the mentioned mathematical model. The findings suggest that the first expectation by minority patients from doctors is to respect to their cultural differences. If it is met at the first glance, then health care service satisfaction tends to increase with the positive effects of other attributes. If not, health care service satisfaction stays at lower with no other attributes playing major roles. According to the findings of the study, other attributes or interrelated ones play significant roles on the health care service satisfaction when they are singly evaluated, which lead to comprehend not only single attributes but also interrelated ones by minorities.

Keywords

Health care service satisfaction, health communication, fuzzy rule base systems, minorities, fuzzy set theory

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