Affective reactions play a crucial role in health (Agrawal et al.,
2007) and displace the value of consumption onto a third object:
the healing process. Clients are exposed to the triple risk connected
with illness, its diagnosis and its treatment, while service recovery
often proves impossible. Health care is a credence service (Berry &
Bendapudi, 2007) in which a stochastic relationship links results in
quality (Kahn et al., 1997), bringing a degree of difficulty to assessments
of the notions of satisfaction and service quality. Parasitic effects
exist in medical practice, such as the placebo and nocebo
effects. Ultimately, individual differences must also be considered
(health capital, heredity, risk perception, personality…).