A Confirmatory Factor Analysis Model of Factors Influencing Consumers’ Use of Dental Clinic Services: A Case Study of Nakhon Ratchasima

Abstract

This study investigated the factors influencing consumers’ use of dental clinic services in a case study of Nakhon Ratchasima Thailand. This study comprises five purposes, 1) to use exploratory factor analysis to group variables, 2) to determine factors affecting consumers by confirmatory factor analysis, 3) to design a model for factors influencing customers by second-order factor analysis, 4) to compare gender differences by invariance test, and 5) to test invariance between consumers under 30 and those aged 30 or over. We used unknown population formulae to determine sample size and interviewed 400 consumers from multistage sampling at the dental clinic in Nakhon Ratchasima province. A close-ended questionnaire was content validity approved by 3 specialists resulting in an Index of Item Objective Congruence (IOC) of 0.950, and reliability Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.955. Data analyses are supported by inferential statistics performed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and second-order factor analysis.The results of this research indicate that 1) 7 variables groups could be selected by exploratory factor analysis, 2) there are five factors that influence consumers’ use of dental clinic services: Price, Place, Promotion, People and Process, 3) according to confirmatory factor analysis of the second-order, the factor that influenced customers the most was People, followed by Process, Promotion, Place, and Price, respectively, which was consistent with the empirical data, 4) according to the results of tests regarding the gender invariance of the model, while females showed no differences, the model for males exhibited differences, 5) according to the results of tests regarding the age invariance of the model, consumers aged 30 or over exhibited differences, but no differences were detected in the model for consumers under 30. The paper closes by discussing the model of the 5 factors influencing consumers’ use of dental clinic services arrived at through this study, which exhibits differences based on gender and age factors.