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The study aims to explore how segmentation as a methodology can be adapted to the healthcare context to provide a more nuanced understanding of the served population and to facilitate the design of patient-centric services.

The study was based on a collaborative project with a national healthcare organization following the principles of action design research. The study describes the quantitative segmentation performed during the project, followed by a qualitative interview study of how segments correspond with patient behaviors in an actual healthcare setting, and service design workshops facilitated by segments. A number of design principles are outlined based on the learnings of the project.

The segmentation approach increased understanding of patient variability within the service provider organization and was considered an effective foundation for modular service design. Patient characteristics and life circumstances were related to specific patterns of health behaviors, such as avoidance or passivity, or a persistent proactivity. These patterns influenced the patients' preferred value co-creation role and what type of support patients sought from the care provider.

The proposed segmentation approach is immediately generalizable to further healthcare contexts and similar services: improved understanding of patients, vulnerable patients in particular, improves the fit and inclusivity of services.

The segmentation approach to service design was demonstrated to be effective in a large-scale context. The approach allows service providers to design service options that improve the fit with individual patients' needs for support and autonomy. The results illuminate how patient characteristics influence health and value co-creation behaviors.

The purpose of this study is to examine the dual effects of the violation of psychological contract on patient’s antisocial behaviour via the mediator of patient trust and the role of doctor-patient communication as a critical contingent variable in the psychological contract violation of patient’s antisocial behaviour relationship.

The data were collected from 483 hospitalized patients distributed in Shanxi province, China by using a self-administered survey.

The results indicated that psychological contract violation is positively associated with patient antisocial behaviour via patient trust. Moreover, the study found that doctor-patient communication moderates the mediated effects of psychological contract violation on patient’s antisocial behaviour through patient trust; that is, the mediated effect on antisocial behaviour is weaker when both doctor and patients have more communication.

Due to a cross-sectional design in nature, the causal relationship cannot be developed based on the results. Despite the limitation, the present study provides insights for improving doctor-patient relationship by emphasizing the importance of increasing patient trust and doctor-patient communication.

To improve the quality of doctor-patient relationship, this study addresses the significance of properly showing understandings and care to regain mutual trust and reducing the likelihood of patient’s antisocial behaviour.

The research findings have implications for both the health system and medical schools in China to reinforce the professional ethics and improve their medical humanities as the main concerns to generate a more sustainable doctor–patient relationship.

This study includes patient trust as a mediator and doctor-patient communication as a moderator to investigate the moderated mediation relationship among patients and medical professionals. By further examining the doctor-patient relationship, the results may not only help improve the efficient implementation of medical practices but also support the institutes and develop medical professionals for more positive doctor-patient relationships.

The study aims to address a critical gap in existing healthcare payment schemes and care service pricing by recognizing the influential role of patients' decisions on self-management efforts. These decisions not only impact health outcomes but also shape the demand for care, subsequently influencing care costs. Despite the significance of this interplay, current payment schemes often overlook these dynamics. The research focuses on investigating the implications of a novel behavior-based payment scheme, designed to align incentives and establish a direct connection between patients' decisions and care costs. The primary objective is to comprehensively understand whether and how this innovative payment scheme structure influences key stakeholders, including patients, care providers, insurers and overall social welfare.

In this paper, we propose a game-theoretical model to incorporate the performance of self-management with the demand for healthcare service, compare the patient's effort decision for self-management and provider's price decision for healthcare service under a behavior-based scheme with that under two implemented widely payment schemes, that is, co-payment scheme and co-insurance scheme.

Our findings confirm that the behavior-based scheme incentives patient self-management more than current schemes while reducing their possibility of seeking healthcare service, which indirectly induces the provider to lower the price of the service. The stakeholders' utility under various payment schemes is sensitive to the cost of treatment and the perceived health utility of patients. Especially, patient health awareness is not always benefited provider profit, as it motivates patient self-management while diminishing the demand for care.

We provide a novel framework for characterizing behavior-based payment schemes. Our results confirm the need for modification of the current payment scheme to incentivize patient self-management.

Workplace voice is well-established and encompasses behaviors such as prosocial voice, informal complaints, grievance filing, and whistleblowing, and it focuses on interactions between the employee and supervisor or the employee and the organizational collective. In contrast, our chapter focuses on employee prosocial advocacy voice (PAV), which the authors define as prosocial voice behaviors aimed at preventing harm or promoting constructive changes by advocating on behalf of others. In the context of a healthcare organization, low quality and unsafe patient care are salient and objectionable states in which voice can motivate actions on behalf of the patient to improve information exchanges, governance, and outreach activities for safer outcomes. The authors draw from the theory and research on responsibility to intersect with theories on information processing, accountability, and stakeholders that operate through voice between the employee-patient, employee-coworker, and employee-profession, respectively, to propose a model of PAV in patient-centered healthcare. The authors complete the model by suggesting intervening influences and barriers to PAV that may affect patient-centered outcomes.

Several studies have described health-seeking behaviour within the context of various diseases, the health status and age group. However, knowledge on patient health-seeking behaviour in the use of public and private hospitals and socio-demographic characteristics in developing countries is still scarce. This paper examines the influence of socio-demographic behavioural variables on health-seeking behaviour and the use of public and private health facilities in Ghana.

Quantitative research approach uses the modified SERVQUAL dimension as a data collection tool. Descriptive statistics with Pearson's chi-square test were conducted to determine the relationship between socio-demographic behavioural variables and health-seeking behaviour of patients using public and private hospitals.

The results showed that there is a significant relationship between the socio-demographic characteristics (sex, marital status, education, level of income) and the health-seeking behaviour of patients in regard to the utilisation of public and private health facilities (p < 0.000).

There is a significant relationship between patients' socio-demographic variables and their choice and utilisation of public and private healthcare services. This information is of value to policy makers so that they have an idea on the socio-demographic behavioural variables that influence patients' health-seeking behaviour.

Given the progressive rise of online health communities (OHC) that have predominantly changed health delivery services, healthcare organizations still face tremendous challenges of low patient participation and lack of high-quality contribution to OHC. Prior scholars indicated that inducing patient value co-creation behavior (VCB) is substantially beneficial for the sustainable growth of OHCs. However, what drives patients' behavior to co-create value is still unknown. To fill this important gap, this study used the service-dominant logic of value co-creation theory and face (mianzi in Chinese) literature to discover how patient co-creation attitude (CA) affects patient VCB. Also, this study aimed to explore the joint mechanism of how face gain (FG) and face loss (FL) impact patients' VCB in OHCs.

The survey data of 322 patients actively using OHC in China were analyzed via partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

The results revealed that patient CA positively influences VCB, that is participation behavior (PB) and citizenship behavior (CB). Face gain (FG) strengthens the impact of CA and patient PB and CB, whereas face loss (FL) weakens the impact of CA and patient PB and CB. Furthermore, the fsQCA findings signify the robustness of the study model.

This study explores the multifaceted mechanism of patient value co-creation in OHC and discloses the crucial role of face for the first time. Further, the novel findings of this study provide a robust framework for advancing the understanding of important drivers of patient VCBs that significantly helps healthcare service providers and OHC managers to sustain OHCs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of a physician’s prosocial behavior on a patient's choices in the online health community (OHC) context. Moreover, the authors explore how such effects differ across different online word-of-mouth (WOM) and professional titles.

Guided by the motivation, opportunity and ability (MOA) framework, this paper develops hypotheses and an econometric model. Then this paper used spline regression to test hypotheses on 6,204 physicians at The Good Doctor (www.Haodf.com), which is one of the largest Chinese OHCs. The authors conducted the propensity score matching and difference-in-difference method (PSM-DID) to address the concern about the bias caused by possible endogeneity concerns.

The authors’ results show that a physician’s prosocial behavior improves a patient's choice only when the strength of a physician’s prosocial behavior is below the tipping point. In addition, the influence of a physician’s prosocial behavior is heterogeneous for physicians with different online WOM and professional titles. For physicians with higher online WOM, the effect of a physician's prosocial behaviors on a patient's choice is positive, while for physicians with lower online WOM, a physician’s prosocial behavior has no impact on a patient’s choice. For physicians with higher professional titles, the quantity of a physician’s prosocial behavior has a positive impact on a patient’s choice, while for physicians with lower professional titles the quality of a physician’s prosocial behavior has a positive impact on a patient’s choice.

This study contributes new knowledge and provides new perspectives to study a patient's choice by addressing the importance of physician's prosocial behavior. With the effort of explicitly explaining the complex mechanisms, this study encourages physicians' engagement in a physician’s prosocial behavior and gives some implications on how to perform the behaviors strategically.

This paper has been written following an influential therapeutic encounter that we experienced while working with an emotionally distressed woman. The barriers that can get in the way of providing a structured therapeutic approach are discussed. The paper focuses on dialectical behaviour therapy as a treatment model, and discusses how the concept of ‘dialectics’ provide an over‐riding context for case conceptualisation (Linehan, 1993). The dialectical dilemmas and powerful dynamics that can be enacted between individuals, teams and patients in their endeavours to cope with distress will be illustrated. The dialectical philosophy is described and elaborated upon, providing a framework for the synthesis of clinical interpersonal encounters and metaphorical concepts of a therapy seesaw. The paper discusses how these ideas can guide us in our work with emotionally distressed individuals.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature and prevalence of bullying behaviours and victimisation experiences among mentally disordered offenders within a medium secure unit (MSU).

In all, 35 adult male patients completed the Direct and Indirect Patient behaviour Checklist-Hospital Version (DIPC-H).

Indirect aggression was reported more frequently than direct aggression, although there was no statistically significant difference between the prevalence estimates. The most prevalent DIPC-H categories were the pure victim and not involved categories followed by bully/victim and pure bully. Membership of the pure bully category was predicted by being on a particular ward.

Given that the study was a preliminary investigation into the nature and prevalence of bullying behaviours in a MSU, the sample size is limited. Consequently, it is difficult to generalise the findings. It would be useful for future research to focus on differences between levels of security using larger sample sizes to enable a greater understanding of the prevalence of bullying in secure settings and associated factors.

Further evidence is provided by the current research that indirect bullying and victimisation behaviours are reported more frequently by patients. The importance of anti-bullying procedures and interventions in secure settings is emphasised and recommendations that can be applied across various forensic settings are described. Better-informed interventions can then be implemented with the aim to manage bullying behaviours in secure settings. The one “pure bully” in the current study was on a rehabilitation ward. This highlights that such behaviours occur on lesser secure wards and serves as an important reminder to ensure that staff do not become complacent.

As there is only one published study to date that has focused on bullying behaviours in a MSU, the current study will contribute to the dearth of literature in this area and assist professionals working in secure settings to better understand the nature and prevalence of bullying behaviours among mentally disordered offenders.

The purpose of this study is to investigate patient perceived value as a stimulus of patient engagement behaviors both from the conceptual and empirical perspectives.

Based on the stimulus–organism–response framework, the authors developed a model to determine the impact of patient perceived value on patient engagement behavior in health care. The data were collected from a sample of 391 patients hospitalized in private hospitals. Structural equation modeling technique was used to test the research hypotheses.

The findings confirmed relevance of the service quality dimensions reliability, tangibility, responsiveness and empathy as significant antecedents of patient perceived value. Perceived value plays a significant role in shaping word of mouth and patient helping behaviors.

The findings of this study are relevant and applicable to patients in private hospitals.

This study contributes to the literature by providing new evidence on patient perceived value and engagement behaviors as a response to care quality. With adequate focus on perceived value and service quality, service providers can strengthen the relationship with patients and build a sustainable competitive advantage, by stimulating engagement behaviors in patients.

This study is of unique value to the health-care literature, both from the theoretical and managerial point of views. This study proposes a conceptual model of patient perceived value which can be used in the private health sector. Moreover, this study contributes to the health-care literature by introducing patient-helping behavior.