Abstract:

The main purpose of the study is to develop a five-point Likert-type perception scale for medical tourism potential. For the scale, which is planned to be developed in line with this purpose, firstly a literature review was conducted, and then an item pool consisting of 26 statements was created by consulting expert opinions. The 22-item scale form, the final version of which emerged after the pilot study, was applied throughout Turkey and data were obtained from 416 people with the online questionnaire technique. The data obtained from the participants were analyzed through SPSS and AMOS programs. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, reliability and validity analyzes were performed. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, expressions with factor loadings below 0.45 and with double loading were removed and a three-dimensional scale consisting of 16 expressions was obtained. The KMO value of the scale was calculated as 0.931 and it was seen that the resulting dimensions explained 65.377% of the total variance. Afterwards, confirmatory factor analysis was performed and the values of the fit index were examined and it was determined that the values were in good agreement. Afterwards, the reliability analysis of the scale whose validity was tested was performed and the Cronbach Alpha value was found to be 0.929. Therefore, it was concluded that the perception scale for the medical tourism potential developed is a valid and reliable scale.

Keywords: