Explaining and Predicting Donors’ Participation Behavior in Iranian Health System

Donors can contribute to the funding, resource generation, and provision of healthcare services in the Iran health system. Several factors can influence the donors’ contribution to the health system. This study aimed to explain and predict the donors’ participation in the Iran health system.

A qualitative and inductive study was performed using semi-structured interviews with 38 donors and 26 policymakers and managers in the Social Affairs Department of the Ministry of Health and the Universities of Medical Sciences in 2018. The interviewees were recruited using a purposeful and snowball method. The thematic content analysis method was used for data analysis. All major ethical considerations were observed in this research.

Healthcare donors followed a purposeful and planned behavior for contributing to the health system. Nine factors can influence a donor’s charitable behavior in the health system, including goal, intention, attitude, norms (ethical, descriptive, and subjective norms), personal characteristics, background knowledge, experience, past behavior, and control of perceived behavior. The donors’ participation in the health system is a function of their goals, intentions, attitudes, and their control of perceived behavior. The donors’ attitude is shaped by their characters, background knowledge, experience, past behavior, and ethical, descriptive, and subjective norms.

The purposeful and planned behavior model developed in this study guides healthcare managers and policymakers in explaining and predicting the donors’ charitable behavior in the health system.