Cognitive predictors of satisfaction with hospital inpatient service encounters among the elderly: a matter of trust.

Given the burgeoning growth of the elderly population, ensuring the satisfaction of senior consumers of health services is worthy of heightened attention by healthcare administrators both on economic and social grounds. By examining inpatient satisfaction among the elderly, we have focused our attention on an important and understudied segment of health consumers within a dominant service delivery context. Moreover, we have supplemented traditional hospital service satisfaction indicators by including a variety of rarely used psychological variables as cognitive predictors of service assessments. This study reinforces the empirical connection between trust in one's physician and elderly inpatient satisfaction at an increased level. The results suggest that increased levels of trust is positively associated with overall satisfaction of elderly inpatients as well as their satisfaction with several subdimensions of service that represent specific attributes of the hospital inpatient encounter.