This study aimed to examine the impact of the five-dimensional health care service quality (SQ) on patient behavioral consent (PBC). This study further explored the mediating role of patient satisfaction (PS) on the SQ-PBC relationship. A survey questionnaire was used to collect the data from public sector hospitals situated in Bahawalpur division, Punjab, Pakistan. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the hypotheses. This study found positive and significant relationships between SQ and PBC, SQ and PS, and PS and PBC. Our results further revealed that PS partially mediates the relationship between SQ and PBC. Our study offers a comprehensive theoretical framework of several service quality attributes (SQs) affecting patient behavioral consent (PBC) and patient satisfaction (PS) in health care institutions. Testing these above relationships via a mediation approach is novel and contributed to the current study on service quality.
Keywords: Pakistan; SEM; patient behavioral consent; patient satisfaction; public sector hospitals; service quality.