Editor—In our research into communication between doctors and patients, we have explored the extent to which patients' wants are met in consultations in general practice.1 On arrival at the practice, patients were asked to complete a form indicating whether they agreed or disagreed with a number of statements about what they wanted from their visit. They were subsequently asked what they felt they had got from the consultation, by using questions adapted from the patient requests form.2 Data were collected from 243 patients (86% response) seen by 18 general practitioners at seven practices, providing a representative range of general practitioners and practice populations.
We found that patients wanted most to talk to their general practitioner. At least half also wanted to participate in decisions about treatment, wanted the doctor to listen to what they thought was wrong, have the problem and the treatment explained to them, and receive a diagnosis. Overall there was wide variation in what patients wanted—some patients wanted all 12 things we asked about, some did not want any, and half wanted between three and seven. The range of consultation time for all patients was from 2 minutes to 21 minutes. After the consultation, patients' responses again ranged from receiving none to all of the things we asked about. Twenty five per cent received less than he or she had wanted.
We looked to see if there was a simple relation between the duration of the consultation and the number of things that patients wanted or received (table). Correlation between these was weak and non-significant, suggesting that consultations in our study were of similar length whether patients wanted (or got) almost all of the things we asked about or they wanted (or got) very few.
Although others have found that longer consultations are associated with better quality care for patients with chronic conditions and higher patient enablement scores,3,4 our findings indicate that consultations do not have to be longer for patients to have good outcomes, and even the shortest of consultations can provide all that patients want. From the patient's perspective it seems that satisfactory consultations do not have to be long ones.
Table.
Correlation between duration of consultations in minutes and numbers of things patients wanted and got from their consultations (n=201)
| What patients wanted
|
What patients got
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Pearson correlation | 0.058 | 0.091 |
| P value | 0.414 | 0.196 |
References
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