Table 3.

Summary of how primary care clinicians’ attitudes towards blood POCTs may act as facilitators and barriers to their adoption in primary care

Theme	Facilitators to adoption of POCTs in primary care	Barriers to adoption of POCTs in primary care
Impact of POCTs on decision-making, diagnosis and treatment	Increased diagnostic certainty	Concerns about accuracy
	More effective targeting of treatment (e.g. antibiotics)	Might not be helpful or alter consultations
		Possible misleading results
Impact of POCTs on clinical practice more broadly	Fewer re-consultations / phone calls for the same or future episodes of illness	Over-reliance, undermining of clinical expertise
	Enhanced confidence and job satisfaction	Cost, equipment maintenance, time
	Avoidance of missing or delayed results, and loss of patients to follow-up	Usefulness limited to certain situations and patients
Impact of POCTs on patient-clinician relationship and perceived patient experience	Enhanced communication through discussing immediate results	Possible patient dislike of testing
	Increased patient education and self-management of chronic conditions	Patient anxiety resulting from intermediate results
	Shared decisions with patients (e.g. antibiotic prescription)
	Greater reassurance and satisfaction for patients
	Patient confidence in clinicians’ decisions