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What do patients want from doctors? Content analysis of written patient agendas for the consultation
1Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, University of Leicester, Leicester General Hospital. rkm@le.ac.uk
Background:
Although much has been written about what patients want when they contact their general practitioner (GP), there are no published data from large cohort studies of what patients expect.
Aim:
To describe the expectations of a large group of patients who consulted with their GPs.
Method:
A GP and a social sciences graduate carried out a content analysis of written agenda forms completed by 819 patients who consulted 46 randomly selected GPs. Inter- and intra-rater reliabilities were confirmed.
Results:
A total of 756 (92%) agenda forms were returned. Inter-rater reliability was satisfactory (kappa > 0.6 for all but two main themes). Almost all patients had requests they wished to make of their doctor, 60% had their own ideas about what was wrong, and 38% had considered explanations about why they were unwell. Forty-two per cent and 24% of patients had consulted because they had reached the limit of their anxiety or tolerance respectively. Seven per cent, 4%, and 2% had comments, which were usually negative, to make about previous management, communication with doctors, or time in the consultation.
Conclusion:
These data demonstrate that most patients come to the consultation with a particular agenda. Failure to address this agenda is likely to adversely affect the outcome of many consultations.
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