Abstract:

The current study was conducted to correlate organizational characteristics and hospital service provision with the delivery of health promotion activities. 178 private hospitals from all states in Malaysia agreed to participate in this study, and formed steering committees to conduct selfassessment on the current organizational practice of health promotion services. Data pertaining hospitals characteristics, current approach of the hospital to deliver health promotion services, and the frequency of hospitals in providing specific health promotion activities were collected usingquestionnaire items developed by the researchers. The self-assessment tool for health promotion was also used to ascertain the extent to which current health promotion practice meet the five WHOHPH standards. The result from the analyses revealed significant differences in mean scores among larger (measured by the number of beds), not-for-profit, and quality accredited hospitals. These hospitals were likely to employ a broader approach to deliver health promotion services that commonly include hospital staff and general public in their service provisions. Significant difference was also observed in the conformance of various standards of WHO-HPH with the current practice. Results from multiple regression analyses performed indicate that hospital characteristics (catchment area, quality accreditation, teaching commitment and research involvement), hospital approach to delivery health promotion services and conformance with WHO-HPH standard 3 and 4 significantly predict the frequency of health promotion delivery as high as 98% F(12,164) = 1176.051 p < .001. When these variables tested individually using a hierarchical regression analysis, hospital characteristics namely catchment area, quality accreditation, teaching commitment and research involvement contributed most to the prediction, even when the other variables were statistically controlled. Overall, the findings might be useful for policy makers, hospital stakeholders, hospital management, and others who would like hospitals to play a greater role in disease prevention and health promotion.