HEALTH SERVICE USER SATISFACTION: PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSTRUCT

Knowing about intrinsic mechanisms that explain cognitive aspects of the psychological construct of health services user satisfaction could promote changes in the approach to the study, design and implementation of new public policies regarding user satisfaction. Objective: To produce a summary of the cognitive theories which explain the concept of psychological construct of health service user satisfaction. Methods: Literature review of publications which served as the bases that have influenced the most the study of user satisfaction from psychological theories and marketing to the management of health services. Results: Abstracts, book chapters, social sciences encyclopedia in ScienceDirect (TM), PRO-QUEST CENTRAL (TM) were initially obtained using search terms such as "Consumer" AND "Services" AND "Satisfaction", as well as "Healthcare" AND "User" AND "Satisfaction" which were included for the period 2013-2017; 322 full text references were obtained and literature related to the origin and explanation of satisfaction psychological construct was selected (N=13). Conclusion: The description of the bases of user satisfaction construct, as well as the summary of theoretical explanatory models applicable to the real world open a new range of possibilities in the management of social communication applications, including transparency and user inclusion; however, more research is still necessary.