Hospital patients' responses to dissatisfaction

Abstract Hospitalized patients' responses to dissatisfaction in the provision of services are analysed as a function of their perceptions of the severity of the service failure and their relative social power. The analysis is based on the responses of 384 patients in a general hospital who reported experiencing at least one disturbing problem in the receipt of hospital services. Three binary dependent variables were constructed based on three dimensions of intensity of complaint behaviours: passive vs. active, non‐directed vs. directed, non‐formal vs. formal. The four possible response combinations created an ordinal scale of intensity of response. The set of independent variables included: perceived severity of the problem, general measures of satisfaction with services, structural power discrepancies, personal and situational resources of social power, and self perception of social power. The results of multivariate analyses indicate that the perceived severity of the problem best explains the intensity of response. Personal and situational social power resources and self perception of power add to the explanation. Structural power discrepancies, however, do not relate to the intensity of patients' responses to dissatisfaction.