Patient satisfaction with out of hours primary medical care

Abstract

Objectives-To describe the relationship between patient satisfaction with out of hours care provided by deputising and practice doctors in four urban areas in England and characteristics of the service provided and patients, the care given, and health outcomes. Setting-Fourteen general practices in four urban areas in England. Participants-People who requested out of hours care. Design-Analysis of data from a study of out of hours care. Patients were interviewed within 5 days of their request for out of hours care. Data on the service provided were obtained from medical records and all other data were collected at interview. Satisfaction was measured using a valid reliable instrument. Results-2152 patients were recruited to the study and 1466 were interviewed. Satisfaction data were available on 1402 patients. "Overall satisfaction" was associated with age, doctor type, lack of access to a car at the time of the request, and health outcome. The relationships between satisfaction subscales and patient characteristics (age, sex, ethnicity, and access to a car at the time of the request), service characteristics (doctor type and delay between the request and visit), whether a prescription was given, and health outcome were variable. If an expected home visit was not received, "overall satisfaction" and satisfaction with "communication and management", "doctor's attitude", and "initial contact person" were reduced. Conclusion-Patient satisfaction is dependent on many factors. Mismatch between patient expectation and the service received is related to decreased satisfaction. This may increase as general practitioners delegate more out of hours care to cooperatives and deputising services.

Contextual and individual factors associated with dissatisfaction with public emergency health services in Brazil, 2011-2012

“…Age 12,20,21 is usually associated with dissatisfaction with health services and this study emphasized the findings present in related literature. The dissatisfaction is smaller in the elders.…”

“…The satisfaction with emergency health services has mainly been associated with physical comfort, medical and nursing care 18,19 , gender, place of residence, civil status, income 20 , education, and age 20,21 . A meta-analysis based on performance results from Iran's emergency health services showed that users are reasonably satisfied (70.9%) 10 .…”

“…Some studies conducted with different methodologies and in different countries evaluating patient satisfaction have been emphasized in order to improve the quality of the services 10,18,19,20,21 . The satisfaction with emergency health services has mainly been associated with physical comfort, medical and nursing care 18,19 , gender, place of residence, civil status, income 20 , education, and age 20,21 .…”

Patient expectations of emergency dental services: a qualitative interview study

“…8 Although the 'disconfirmation of expectations' comprises one of the main theoretical models of consumer satisfaction, 9 empirical studies show that the relationship between satisfaction and expectations in healthcare is far from simple. [10][11][12] However, surveys of primary care walk-in patients 13 and of out-of-hours primary care patients 14,15 have shown that, in these patient groups, decreased satisfaction with the consultation is associated with unmet expectations. A recent qualitative study of dental patients has also reasserted the importance of expectations in determining satisfaction with dental care.…”

The effectiveness of out-of-hours dental services: I. pain relief and oral health outcome

“…'Universal access' services -intended for both registered and unregistered patients -exist in some areas, and these may use either telephone-based or 'walk-in' access arrangements, and see patients in either hospital, NHS community dental service (CDS) or general dental surgery settings. 1 Despite this diversity in the types of out-of-hours dental care available, and a wealth of studies of different models of GP-provided out-of-hours medical care, [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] there are no comparative studies that assess the effectiveness of emergency dental care provided in different ways. This study was originally designed to compare the cost-effectiveness of 'universal-access' out-of-hours dental care arrangements with 'conventional' out-of-hours care (that is, arrangements where there are separate service arrangements for registered and unregistered patients).…”