Patient satisfaction with breast cancer follow-up care provided by family physicians

There is little evidence to document patient satisfaction with follow-up care provided by family physicians (FPs)/general practitioners (GPs) to breast cancer patients. We aimed to identify determinants of satisfaction with such care in low-income, medically underserved women with breast cancer.

This was a cross-sectional study of 145 women who reported receiving follow-up care from an FP/GP. Women were enrolled in California's Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Program and were interviewed by phone 3 years after their breast cancer diagnosis. Cleary and McNeil's model, which states that patient satisfaction is a function of patient characteristics, structure of care, and processes of care, was used to understand the determinants of satisfaction. Stepwise logistic regression was used to identify significant predictors.

Of the patients interviewed, 73.4% reported that they were extremely satisfied with their treatment by the FP/GP. Women who were able to ask their family physicians questions about their breast cancer had six times greater odds of being extremely satisfied compared with women who were not able to ask any questions. Women who scored the FP higher on the ability to explain things in a way she could understand had higher odds of being extremely satisfied compared with women who scored their family physicians lower.

FPs/GPs providing follow-up care for breast cancer patients should encourage patients to ask questions and must communicate in a way that patients understand. These recommendations are congruent with the characteristics of patient-centered communication for cancer patients enunciated in a recent National Cancer Institute monograph.