Social support expectations from healthcare systems: Antecedents and emotions

Abstract

The paper attempts to highlight the factors that lead to the expectation of social support from healthcare systems; to study the role of negative consumer emotions in the expectation of social support from healthcare systems. 'Emotion' is posited as a key influencing factor behind the need for emotional, instrumental, and informational support from 'people' involved in providing healthcare services. Depth interviews of customers of healthcare services have been conducted to arrive at hypotheses for developing a conceptual model of customer expectations of social support from healthcare systems. Negative symptoms and negative emotions are found to be positively related to the expected social support from healthcare systems, with negative emotions also partially mediating the positive relationship between negative symptoms and expected social support from healthcare systems. Negative emotions are also found to moderate the negative relationship between perceived social support from social systems and expected social support from healthcare systems. The relevance of the study of emotion change through social support during times of illness, and its impact on consumer behavioural intentions is discussed. This research attempts to integrate previous research in customer expectations and social support within the purview of healthcare.