Peoples’ expectations of healthcare: A conceptual review and proposed analytical framework

Expectations shape how one experiences the healthcare one receives. In this paper we argue that the current conceptualisations of expectations within the healthcare literature have much to gain from the many recent and adjacent conceptual developments in other disciplines. The concept of expectations has been extensively studied across disciplines – we review the key texts on the subject in the business, management, social psychology, and sociology literatures to provide a conceptual overview and propose an integrative analytical framework for better understanding individuals' expectations in healthcare. We argue that peoples' expectations of a care encounter are usefully understood as being shaped by their social locations at particular points of time, which is at the intersection of multiple social structures and relations. Peoples' future expectations of care may also be influenced by the experiences of past and current care encounters, framed again by intersecting social structures and relations at that point in time. We demonstrate how an intersectional, translocational and relational analytical approach can allow researchers and practitioners to consider how peoples’ social locations shape their expectations of care, not only within a given social environment, but at certain points in time and over time. We emphasise that, given the mobilities and mixing societies are experiencing globally, such an approach is particularly useful for understanding healthcare-related expectations and experiences of all.