Abstract:
The following research discusses the impact of negative publicity on the hospital industry of Islamabad in the context of how consumers attitudes, image of the hospital and their intention to further remain as clients of the hospital in the future. The major reason behind carrying out this research was due to the fact that the hospital industry is one of the most under studied industry in Pakistan which is also going through rapid changes whether it be due to increasing demand, technological advancement or any other reason. The framework for this research includes one independent variable and three dependent variables. The independent variable is negative publicity whereas the three dependent variables are brand image, brand attitude and service availing intention. The collection of data for this research was done through the use of questionnaires which was made on Google Forms and circulated from there onwards. The total numbers of respondents for this research were 201. The data collected was then analyzed through software called SPSS and different statistical tests were carried out namely, correlation, regression, reliability. The results indicated that negative publicity indeed does have a strong and negative impact on the 3 dependent variables. There had been a few constraints faced by the researcher such as lack of time and resources and this study can further be improved if more variables are included as well as a larger sample size.
