A word-of-mouth perspective on consumers of family medicine services: a case study

In an increasingly competitive health care market, family physicians have to elaborate and implement new strategies to attract potential patients. A useful and powerful method is word-of-mouth (WOM) because it shapes the consumers' attitudes and behaviours. Based on the recommendations of actual consumers, potential health care patients choose their family physicians. The aim of this study was to investigate the usefulness of WOM in family medicine and determine the key factors in recommending a certain family physician. The sample consisted of 338 patients under the supervision of a family physician, and the instrument for collecting data was a self-administered questionnaire. The findings revealed that the most important factors in spreading WOM are the communication skills and the expertise of the family physician. In addition, for patients between 27–33 years and 41–47 years, expertise is an absolute skill, whereas, for the health care consumers between 21 and 26 years, communication skills are essential in spreading WOM. Further, WOM becomes relevant in the family physician's activity as it may contribute to the delivery of value and in building sustainable physician-patient relationships.