The Journal of

  Background :With the dramatic increase in private institutions and hospitals, health services market has become somewhat a competitive market in this position one of the most important duties of hospitals is to struggle to attract customer. So, the purpose of this research was to determine the most important factors that patients adopt to choose a public a or private hospital.

  Methods: This research was a descriptive – analyical study. In this study, participants included patients who were in-patients in Shams and Emam Reza hospitals in Tabriz. By the sampling method, 376patients were chosen. Data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire which was made in 2 parts and its validity and reliability was confirmed. Finally Data were analyzed by Chi-Square, T-Test, fisher test.

  Results: The results showed that among the factors influencing choice of hospital, emergency, doctor’s recommendation, family income, kind of inssurance, quality of hospital, and education presented to patient about illness, were the most important faehors.

  Conclusion: According to the finding, al though factors such as family income, kind of inssurance, quality of hospital services and … were effecive on hospital choice, the role of patients was meager in choosing hospital.