zahra alidadi

Attracting and retaining medical tourists, as well as converting users of medical tourism services into loyal tourists, is of great importance. Situation analysis can boost the capabilities of the medical tourism industry and retain the medical tourist; therefore, this study was conducted to determine the relationship between medical tourists' satisfaction with the intention to return through trust in medical tourism destinations.

In this descriptive-survey, study population was medical tourists referring to hospitals and medical centers in Mashhad City, Iran, of which 384 individuals were surveyed using the available method and a questionnaire. The content and construct validity were confirmed, and the reliability was computed as 0.953 through Cronbach's alpha. Data analysis was performed using Structural Equation Modeling.

The study of the relationship between research variables indicated that the satisfaction of medical tourists was significantly related to trust in staff and in the hospital. Besides, the effect trust in staff and in the hospital on the intention of medical tourists to return was confirmed.

Three factors of medical tourist satisfaction, trust in staff, and trust in hospital trust play a major role in the return of medical tourists, among which staff trust has the greatest impact on increasing the intention of medical tourists to return to hospitals.