This study purports to investigate the determinants of patient satisfaction and intent to revisit at 11 national university hospitals in Korea. A total of 8 independent variables for outpatients, 9 independent variables for inpatients, and an intervening variable of overall patient satisfaction were selected from literature review. The independent variables for outpatients include the level of satisfaction with physicians, nurses, ancillary staff, administrative procedures, medical costs, the physical environment, facility convenience and health recovery. For the independent variables for inpatients, the quality of ward services was added as an extra variable to the outpatient variables. Each variable contains 3 to 8 items measuring the level of satisfaction with various aspects of that variable. The sample used in this study consisted of 879 outpatients and 821 inpatients. Data were collected by interview surveys and analyzed using path analysis.
The major findings of the study are as follows:
1) The following variables, listed in declining order of size, have a significant positive effect on the intent to revisit by outpatients: health recovery, overall satisfaction, satisfaction with physicians, and ancillary staff.
2) The following variables, listed in declining order of size, have a significant positive effect on the intent to revisit by inpatients: health recovery, satisfaction with nurses and physicians, overall satisfaction, and administrative procedures.
3) The remaining variables of admission procedure, satisfaction with ancillary staff, facility convenience, and quality of ward services were found to have a significant positive effect only on the level of overall satisfaction, although they did not have a significant total effect on the intent to revisit.
The results of the study indicate that Korean national university hospitals should make an effort to improve patients' level of satisfaction with the treatment outcome, services provided by physicians, nurses and ancillary staff, and the quality of administrative procedures in order to increase the intent to revisit by patients.

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