Do general practitioners change how they use the computer during consultations with a significant psychological...

Area of Science:

• Medical Informatics
• General Practice
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Electronic health records are increasingly integrated into primary care.
• Understanding physician computer use patterns is crucial for optimizing patient-doctor interactions.
• Previous research has not fully explored how computer use varies with consultation type, particularly concerning psychological content.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize the different ways family doctors use computers during patient consultations.
• To investigate whether doctors modify their computer interaction patterns when dealing with consultations that have significant psychological components.

Main Methods:

• An observational, non-randomized cluster trial design was employed.
• Data were collected via videotaped consultations from ten family doctors across three inner-city practices.
• 100 consultations were analyzed, with doctors categorized into 'end users', 'continuous users', or 'minimal users' based on their computer interaction style.

Main Results:

• Doctors exhibited three distinct computer use styles: end, continuous, and minimal users.
• Consultations with psychological content were longer on average than those without.
• Physicians spent significantly less time interacting with the computer during psychological consultations (11% vs. 23%, p<0.001).

Conclusions:

• Family doctors adopt identifiable styles of computer use during patient encounters.
• Doctors demonstrated an ability to adjust their computer engagement during consultations with significant psychological content, reducing screen time.
• This suggests a flexible and context-dependent approach to computer use in primary care.