Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Quality of Hospital Service and Patient's Loyalty in Iranian Hospitals, a Systematic Review

Providing high quality services in hospitals increases patient loyalty and improves hospital performance. This study analyzed the relationship between the quality of hospital services and patient loyalty in Iranian hospitals.

This study was conducted using a meta-analysis method. For this purpose, all published articles on the relationship between the quality of hospital services and patient loyalty in Iranian hospitals in the period from 2012 to the end of March 2017 were reviewed in five databases and a search engine. Finally, 11 papers were included in the study, which were analyzed using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software.

The results showed that the mean effect of hospital services quality on patient loyalty was 0.66, which was highly evaluated based on Cohen's interpretive system. Based on the randomized model, the effect size in inpatients, outpatients and all patients was 0.74, 0.45 and 0.66, respectively. On the other hand, the size of the effect was 0.76in the army forces hospitals, 0.71 in the private hospitals, 0.62 in the public hospitals and 0.55 in the public and private hospitals. The size of the effect based on the random model in Tehran province and other provinces was 0.84 and 0.64, respectively, which was significant in all variables (P = 0.0001).

Providing quality services affects patients' loyalty. Therefore, hospital managers, while planning to improve the quality of services, should provide the ground for paying attention to the dimensions and components of increasing patient loyalty to the hospital.