What Patients Want From Primary Care Consultations: A Discrete Choice Experiment to Identify Patients’ Priorities
Ann Fam Med Cheraghi-Sohi et al.
6: 107
The Article in Brief
What Patients Want From Primary Care Consultations: A Discrete Choice Experiment to Identify Patients' Priorities
Sudeh Cheraghi-Sohi, BSc, and colleagues
Background What do patients consider important when they visit the doctor? This study assesses patient priorities in the doctor visit.
What This Study Found Although communication is important to patients, they place higher priority on technical care and continuity of care (an ongoing relationship with a clinician). Patients value the thoroughness of the primary care visit most highly, followed by seeing a doctor who knows them well, seeing a doctor with a warm and friendly manner, less waiting time for an appointment, and flexibility in selecting appointment times.
Implications
- In order to make decisions about their medical care, patients need information about both technical and relationship aspects of care. Little is known, however, about how patients assess technical care.
- The results of this study can inform discussions of health care policy and payment.
