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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relative importance of attributes for patient selection of a medical institution and to quantitatively evaluate the impact of different types of organizational forms upon the patient ' s selection of a medical institution.

By using a conjoint analysis, evaluation criteria in patient selection of a medical institution were examined. The paper assumed the selection of a medical institution under the situation of “being given a diagnosis of suspected diabetes with a physical examination and then visiting a medical institution”. The attributes included in the questionnaire were: quality of the medical institution, distance to the hospital, amount paid at the initial visit, amount paid at hospitalization for examinations, and organizational form of the hospital. Relative importance of the attributes and relative importance of organizational form were assessed. A total of 140 people were requested to respond to the questionnaire by way of researchers who have a connection with the authors. Completed responses were obtained from 111 subjects (79 per cent).

The results of the conjoint analysis revealed that the most important attribute was quality of the medical institution. Organizational form was the attribute with the lowest importance. The utility value of being a public hospital was the highest within the organizational form attribute for all respondents and being a private hospital was the lowest. The quality of the medical institution was considered the most important factor in selecting a medical institution and the type of organizational form was considered least important. Regarding organizational form, being a public hospital was most preferred and being a hospital managed by a company and a private hospital were least preferred respectively among healthcare professionals and other occupations.

The paper provides a relative evaluation of the factors thought to be important for patients in Japan when selecting a medical institution.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the relationship between job stress, stress coping ability and performance among Japanese nurses.

Health risk and organization environment as job stress factors, sense of coherence (SOC) as stress coping ability and medical risk indicator and sickness‐absence days as a performance proxy were used to investigate the relationship between stress and performance. Length of professional experience also was included in the investigation.

The findings suggest a possibility that enriching nurses' professional experiences reduces medical risk. There is also a possibility that raising the SOC, while improving organization environment, contributes to reducing sickness‐absence.

A cross‐sectional study of nurses in a single institution was used. In order to generalize the study's results, it will be necessary to conduct multi‐institutional longitudinal studies.

The present study shows key factors affecting medical risk and sickness‐absence leading to a reduced nursing performance.