Patient assessment of primary care physician communication: segmentation approach

The purpose of this paper is to examine how patient assessment of primary care physician (PCP) communication is related to patient satisfaction with the PCP, patient perception of PCP professional competence, patient assessment of the relationship with the doctor and patient demographic characteristics using a segmentation approach.

The authors surveyed 514 adult patients waiting for appointments with their PCPs in two US primary care clinics. A latent class analysis was used to identify mutually exclusive unobserved homogeneous classes of patients.

The authors identified three distinct classes/groups with regard to patient assessment of physician communication and the physician-patient relationship. The largest group (53 percent of the sample) assessed their PCP communication and other doctor-patient relationship aspects as excellent. However, 37 percent provided mostly negative assessments, expressed high general dissatisfaction with the physician and disagreed with the statement that their PCP was well qualified to manage their health problems. These patients were on average more educated and affluent and the group included more males. About 10 percent of patients expressed generally lower satisfaction with the PCP, though their dissatisfaction was not as extreme as in the highly dissatisfied group.

Further studies are needed to help physicians develop skills to communicate with different patients.

Patient segmentation can be an important tool for healthcare quality improvement particularly for emerging approaches to primary care such as patient-centered care.