Learning about physician service quality from online reviews: a developing country perspective

Purpose Increasingly available online reviews of physicians by patients offer an opportunity to explore physician service quality using text mining techniques. However, such studies have so far been conducted mainly in US, UK and China. The current study aims to identify desirable attributes of physicians from online reviews in a developing country, Pakistan. Design/methodology/approach 60,458 usable online reviews of Pakistani physicians were scraped from two popular physician rating websites of Pakistan. Topic modeling and salience analysis were employed to analyze these reviews. Findings Results show that competence is the most important attribute of the physician for Pakistani patients, followed by attention, communication, manners and treatment efficacy in the same order. Comparison with other studies conducted in US, UK and China reveals that some physician attributes like competence and manners are valued universally, but some others vary with culture. Originality/value The study contributes significantly to filling the knowledge gap related to patient preferences in developing countries. It also underscores the value of user-generated content available on online forums and offers practical insights to improve patients' healthcare experience.