Relationship between Medical Therapy Tourism and the Rate of Tourism Attraction in Ardabil Province

Health tourism is one of the types of health service trades. Iran has high potential in developing this field. The aim of the current study was investigating the relationship between medical curative tourism and the rate of tourism attraction in Ardebil province.
current study was an applied one with descriptive-analytical method of study. Samples were statistically estimated and study setting included 8 public and 2 private hospitals, mineral spas, residential places (hotels, inns and guest rooms) of Ardebil. Data gathered using a check list prepared by the researcher regarding the terms and regulations of the centers for health tourism, an standard checklist of evaluation of the international patients unit medial institution of Ministry of Health that its face validity approved by the experts. To implement the field research, 3 samples of each hospital with total of 30 check-lists and 99 controls were prepared by health tourism experts of the university, funding department of the hospital and the researcher. For data analysis, Cosmograph-Smirnov test used to determine the normality and multi-variable regression and Pearson Correlation test used to measure the relationship between variables using SPSS Statistical software.
Results of the study indicated that the highest and lowest mean were related with having general qualifications of tourism attraction (1.85) and lower costs and ability to communicate (1.26), respectively. Among variables of medical therapy tourism (country status, condition of hospitals, medical team condition and the mineral spas condition), the general condition of the hospitals and the condition of medical team had no meaningful relationship with the rate of tourism attraction. Therefore, the general hypothesis was confirmed that there was a significant relationship between medical tourism and the rate of tourism attraction in Ardebil province (p Results of the study indicated that among different factors of country status, condition of hospitals, medical team and the mineral spas, the factor of hospital condition due to the lower gradation and standards of the Ardebil hospitals and the factor of medical team condition due to poor understanding and awareness of the medical team of the regulations and their poor ability in obtaining the required skills, no significant relationship found between medical tourism and the rate of tourism attraction in Ardebil province. Therefore, it is suggested that the authorities in the field of health and tourism help in more development of this industry by providing the necessary substructures of this sector and execution of macro politics.