Vol. 1, No. 2 Global Journal of Health Science 50 Determinants of Consumer Satisfaction of Health Care in Ghana: Does Choice of Health Care Provider Matter? Edward Nketiah-Amponsah (Corresponding author) Department of Economic and Technological Change, Center for Development Research (ZEF) University of Bonn, Walter-Flex-Str. 3, D-53113, Bonn Germany and Department of Economics, University of Ghana, Box LG57 Legon-Accra, Ghana Tel: 491-511-799-5829 E-mail: enamponsah@uni-bonn.de; eddyil@yahoo.com Ulrich Hiemenz Department of Economic and Technological Change, Center for Development Research University of Bonn, Walter-Flex-Str. 3, D-53113, Bonn, Germany Tel: 49-228-731-861 E-mail: ulrich.hiemenz@uni-bonn.de Abstract A modern health system which provides high quality care has trickle-down effect on the quality of life of the individual citizens and the overall economic development of the country. One method which is applicable to the measurement of quality of health care is consumers’ ratings of the services provided. This paper investigated the overall level of satisfaction associated with the choice of a health care provider. Parents whose children (aged-under five) fell sick four weeks prior to the survey and had sought intervention within 2 days were asked their overall level of satisfaction with health care providers. Using the ordered logit model the study confirms the notion in Ghana and elsewhere that private health care is associated with higher levels of satisfaction or quality. Control variables that were found to be statistically significant were gender of the child, maternal age and education, distance and waiting time among other. To the best of our knowledge, no study has examined the effect of provider choice on overall satisfaction of health care in Ghana. Keywords: Consumer satisfaction, Health care provider, Ordered logit, Ghana 1. Introduction This paper focuses on the overall satisfaction that consumers gain from consuming health services from a given provider. Quality of health services is gaining momentum in the health care literature. Increasingly, health care stakeholders such as governments, health authorities and consumers are attaching importance to health care quality (Lapsley, 2000; Smith et al. 2006). More and more, patients’ satisfaction is recognized as essential component in the evaluation of health care quality (Derose et al. 2001; Donabedian, 1992). The quality of health care is not confined to clinical effectiveness or economic efficiency but also incorporate social acceptability as an important quality objective (Calnan, 1997; Donabedian, 1992; Maxwell, 1984). Monitoring and evaluating consumer satisfaction with health care is a crucial input to improving the quality of health system and changes in the system as well as providing feedback for health care professionals and policy makers (Bara et al. 2002). Measures of consumer satisfaction with health care can provide important assessment of quality of health care not adequately captured by other health service statistics such as patient throughput, waiting times, consultation times and proximity (Sitzia and Wood, 1997; Williams and Calnan, 1991). In fact, it has been suggested that patient satisfaction is a major quality outcome in itself (Derose et al. 2001). The extent to which health care users are satisfied with their local providers may be a key factor underpinning their health behaviour and health care utilization (Rakin et al. 2002; Hadorn, 1991). It is envisaged that timely, accessible, appropriate health interventions, continuous and effective health services are important components of health care quality (Cambell et al. 2000). In Ghana, the Institutional Care Division (ICD) of Ghana Health Service (GHS) has direct responsibility of ensuring health care quality. The need to improve health care quality was given prominence in the Health Sector 5-year Programme of Work (1997-2001) and the second 5-year Programme of Work (2002-2006) (Note 1). A qualitative