Doctor's Manner Research Articles

Factors affecting patient satisfaction during endoscopic procedures.

To assess the quality and patient satisfaction in Endoscopy Unit of Shifa International Hospital. Cross-sectional survey. Division of Gastroenterology, Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad, Pakistan, from July 2011 to January 2012. Quality and patient satisfaction after the endoscopic procedure was assessed using a modified GHAA-9 questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 16. A total of 1028 patients were included with a mean age of 45 ± 14.21 years. Out of all the procedures, 670 (65.17%) were gastroscopies, 181 (17.60%) were flexible sigmoidoscopies and 177 (17.21%) were colonoscopies. The maximum unsatisfactory responses were on the waiting time before the procedure (13.13 %), followed by unsatisfactory explanation of the procedure and answers to questions (7.58%). Overall, unsatisfied impression was 4.86%. The problem rate was 6.22%. The quality of procedures and level of satisfaction of patients undergoing a gastroscopy or colonoscopy was generally good. The factors that influence the satisfaction of these patients are related to communication between doctor and patient, doctor's manner and waiting time for the procedure. Feedback information in an endoscopy unit may be useful in improving standards, including the performance of endoscopists.

Quantifying patient preferences for out-of-hours primary care.

To quantify public preferences for different attributes of out-of-hours primary medical care. This study applies a technique called conjoint analysis. A focus group was convened to identify the most important attributes for inclusion in the study, followed by a postal questionnaire asking people to choose between hypothetical services containing different mixes of these attributes. Multi-variate regression analysis estimated the relative importance of different attributes to respondents. The respondents were 436 adults who were among respondents to an earlier postal survey of 25,090 randomly selected Sheffield residents. The doctor's manner (whether the doctor takes time to listen), the type of consultation (whether the patient receives a home visit, telephone advice, sees an accident and emergency doctor or attends a primary care treatment centre) and waiting time for consultation best predicted the public's preferences for out-of-hours care. Another three attributes--ease of access; seeing a familiar doctor; and the doctor's shift arrangements--were not statistically significant. By asking people to make simple choices between hypothetical services, it is possible to quantify their strength of preference for different aspects of a service. This has important implications for the planning of services. Specifically, for out-of-hours services, more consideration should be given to the doctor's manner and waiting times rather than familiarity of doctor.

What Hong Kong Patients Want and Expect From Their Doctors

Two studies surveyed what Hong Kong patients expect and want in relationships with physicians. The 1st asked about patient satisfaction with doctor manner, consideration, and concern. Patients were more satisfied with doctor manner than with doctor consideration. Doctor concern was seldom expressed. Overall patients were not dissatisfied with their doctors, however. Other factors like convenience and cost seemed more important. The second study asked participants to note which doctor behaviors they expected, were the basis for choosing a doctor, caused satisfaction, and caused dissatisfaction, and they wanted doctors to change. The behaviors were grouped into 4 categories: patient centered, doctor centered, doctor technical skill, and other. Participants consistently chose patient centered least frequently. The communication behaviors most valued by Hong Kong patients seem to be doctor centered. Other studies show a preference for participation and patient-centered communication, but these studies show that their absence is not an important influence on what patients want and expect in Hong Kong.