Abstract—Recently hospitals are facing several challenges in a competitive medical market, how to enhance physician-patient relationship becomes an important concern for hospitals to better improve medical quality and patient loyalty. However, the enhancement of patient loyalty through a better physician-patient relationship is still ambiguous in healthcare field. The purpose of this study aims to examine the physician-patient interaction, and to further investigate the relationships among relationship quality, patient gratitude, alternative attractiveness, and patient loyalty. The findings revealed that both satisfaction and commitment had positive effects on patient loyalty whereas trust had no significant impact on patient loyalty. Additionally, gratitude demonstrated a significant effect on patient loyalty. In addition, patient loyalty was found to have no significant impact on patient loyalty. Healthcare management should pay more attention to relationship-oriented elements (such as relationship quality and gratitude) in order to provide a better physician-patient relationship in medical service industries.

Index Terms—Alternative attractiveness, patient gratitude, patient loyalty, relationship quality.

Pao-Chun Hsieh is with Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Cheng Ching General Hospital-Chung Kang Branch, Taichung City, Taiwan (email: Lisat23@163.com).
Yii-Ching Lee is with School of Health Policy and Management, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan.
He is also with Department of Health Business Administration, Hung Kuang University, Taichung City, Taiwan and Shanghai Changtai Healthcare Management Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China.
Hsin-Hung Wu is with Department of Business Administration, National Changhua University of Education, Changhua City, Taiwan. He is also with Department of Business Administration, National Changhua University of Education, Changhua City, Taiwan.
Chih-Hsuan Huang is with School of Business Administration, Hubei University of Economics, Wuhan City, China.
Li Li is with School of Management, Wuhan Institute of Bioengineering, Wuhan City, China (email: Lisat23@163.com).

Cite: Pao-Chun Hsieh, Yii-Ching Lee, Hsin-Hung Wu, Chih-Hsuan Huang, Li Li, "Establishing Patient Loyalty by Investigating Its Relationship with Relationship Quality, Alternative Attractiveness, and Patient Gratitude in Hospitals," International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 58-65, 2018.