Abstract

DUARTE, Ana Luísa Marques; SILVESTRE, Ana Rita  and  MILHEIRO, João Luis. A step approach to consultation and patient satisfaction: an observational pilot study. Rev Port Med Geral Fam [online]. 2019, vol.35, n.4, pp.271-284. ISSN 2182-5173.  https://doi.org/10.32385/rpmgf.v35i4.12331.

Objective: To study the relationship between a step structured primary care consultation and patient satisfaction, based on the model proposed in the book A CONSULTA EM 7 PASSOS. Design: Analytical observational. Place: Primary Health-care facility USF Andreas. Sample: Seventy patients, between the ages of 18 and 85 years, who attended primary care consultations between October and November of 2016. Methods: After leaving the medical office, each patient was invited to fill a consultation satisfaction questionnaire; in its turn, the physician was asked to complete another set of questions related to his perception about the accomplishment level of several consultation tasks. It was conducted a Spearman correlation test, to relate the family physician questionnaire score with the patient satisfaction level. The same test was also conducted to relate the tasks accomplishment level with satisfaction. Finally, this analysis has been run on a sample of different groups separated by sex, age, education, consultation type, verbalization problems, and patient-physician relationship length. Results: Eighty-seven percent of the patients declared to be total or highly satisfied with the primary care consultation. In the overall sample, the findings show no significant correlation, between family physician questionnaire score and patient satisfaction level [?=-0.11 (p=0.36)]. There were also no significant correlations between tasks accomplishment level and patient satisfaction. Nevertheless, the data analyzed clustered by sex, consultation type, verbalization problems, and education, showed significant correlations between some of the performed tasks and satisfaction. Conclusion: This research suggests that some tasks, from the 7-step primary care consultation model, may have more impact on patient satisfaction than others, depending on the patient characteristics and consultation type.

Keywords : Patient satisfaction; Office visits; Primary health care; Family physician.

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