International Journal of Business and Management Invention (IJBMI) ISSN (Online): 2319-8028, ISSN (Print):2319-801X www.ijbmi.org || Volume 9 Issue 4 Ser. II || Apr. 2020 || PP 12-18 www.ijbmi.org 12 | Page Research on Patient Satisfaction in Hospitals: An Example of a Public Hospital in Turkey Yılmaz Salim, Söyük Selma Corresponding Author:Yılmaz, Salim Istanbul Okan University, Health Management Department Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa, Health Management Department ABSTRACT: The aim of this study is to determine the satisfaction levels of patients receiving inpatient services in a public hospital.The study was conducted in a public hospital in Turkey's Central Anatolia Region. In this study, questionnaire method was used as data collection tool. “Patient Judgments in Quality of Hospital Questionnaire” which was developed by Meterko at al. was created by utilizing the scale gained in Turkish in AygülYanık’s doctoral dissertation. A total of 174 questionnaires were collected, but 7 were canceled due to incomplete questionnaires and 167 questionnaires were evaluated. In addition, as a result of the reliability analysis conducted in our study, Cronbach Alpha value was 0.730 and the study was considered reliable enough. SPSS 22.0 program was used for statistical analysis; used in number and percentage frequency analysis; Since Kolmogrov Smirnov test result was p <0.05, it was determined that the data were not distributed normally and pairwise comparison non parametric post-hoc hypothesis tests with Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis were applied and evaluated.As a result of the research, it can be concluded that the satisfaction level of the patients is generally good enough. There was no statistically significant difference between the demographic characteristics and satisfaction levels of the patients. A noteworthy result is that the satisfaction levels of the low-income green card and those with income below 2000฀ are lower than those with less high income. KEY WORD:Patient satisfaction, patient contentment, public hospital. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 16-04-2020 Date of Acceptance: 01-05-2020 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I.INTRODUCTION AND THE CONCEPT OF PATIENT SATISFACTION Health services have their own unique structures. Characteristics of health services in the literature are that; there is absolutely no substitution, having investment-consumption expenditure at the same time, inability to stock up, needing very high technology and expertise and there is no possibility to postpone. In addition, we should know that the consequences of faults and problems in health service delivery can be very severe. The benefit of society, as well as the benefit of the individual, has a significant correlation with the good management of health. For this reason, health is irreplaceable for the state, society and the individual (Goben et al., 2020). Especially with health transformation program in Turkey, a significant increase in the number of public hospitals, university hospitals, and private sector-related hospitals have occurred. This has led to increased competition and the need for healthcare providers to constantly update themselves to survive. On the other hand, the developing technology and communication network has increased the effect of word of mouth marketing. Through Google reviews, complaints sites, and various other platforms, individuals can easily share their opinions about companies, institutions, and even the staff that they have got the service from, and these shares can reach thousands of people quickly. This situation can be evaluated on the same basis as “customer satisfaction”, which the healthcare professionals refuse, but the business managers in the health sector do not hesitate to use (Gun and Aslan, 2018). The positive aspect of this assessment is that it leads to the need to search for ways to increase the satisfaction of the customers with the perspective of patients or private sector operators. In fact, the concept of patient satisfaction is a subject that has been studied for many years; it has been the subject of numerous studies that can be conducted meta-analysis many times. However, in today's world conjuncture, which is decreasing with increasing competition environment and communication that is increasing and accelerating, patient satisfaction reminds us of its importance once again (Kavalukas et al.,2020). The aim of this study is to reemphasize the importance of patient satisfaction and to achieve this by determining the satisfaction levels of patients who receive inpatient treatment services in a public hospital that is within the scope of the research. As a concept, satisfaction is a multi-factor phenomenon that blends personal and social values with past experiences and expectations about the future, pleasure from lifestyle. In business literature, the concept of