Table 3.
Relative frequencies of the consultations by categories of patient types in GP practices divided by region MA
| Total | Urban areas | Environs | Rural areas | P value (U/R) | P value (E/R) | |
| (n=210) | (n=65) | (n=74) | (n=71) | |||
| Theme 1: Morbidity | ||||||
| Patients with a chronic illness | 57.7% | 57.2% | 57.3% | 58.6% | 0.662 | 0.680 |
| Patients with multimorbidity | 45.9% | 47.4% | 43.3% | 47.2% | 0.953 | 0.224 |
| Patients with psychiatric disorders | 14.7% | 19.2% | 12.8% | 12.5% | 0.002 | 0.839 |
| Patients with somatoform disorders | 14.4% | 15.6% | 14.6% | 13.0% | 0.175 | 0.464 |
| Patients with dementia | 6.4% | 5.7% | 7.1% | 6.3% | 0.549 | 0.417 |
| Patients with substance abuse disorders | 5.6% | 7.2% | 5.2% | 4.5% | 0.017 | 0.441 |
| Theme 2: Sociodemographic characteristics | ||||||
| Educationally disadvantaged patients with low health literacy | 10.9% | 15.8% | 8.4% | 9.1% | 0.004 | 0.666 |
| Privately insured patients | 8.4% | 9.3% | 9.4% | 6.6% | 0.074 | 0.007 |
| Patients with social problems due to poverty/low income | 5.9% | 8.7% | 4.2% | 5.3% | 0.020 | 0.270 |
| Minors accompanied by their parents | 4.8% | 3.1% | 5.0% | 6.3% | <0.001 | 0.139 |
| Patients with migration background and culturally different disease concepts | 3.9% | 6.5% | 3.0% | 2.5% | <0.001 | 0.492 |
| Patients with migration background and communication problems | 3.5% | 5.6% | 2.6% | 2.6% | 0.002 | 0.962 |
| Minors who come to consultation on their own | 3.0% | 2.7% | 3.4% | 2.8% | 0.928 | 0.270 |
| Theme 3: Specific care needs | ||||||
| Senior citizens living on their own without caregivers | 13.2% | 16.0% | 12.7% | 11.2% | 0.034 | 0.401 |
| Patients with other social problems | 9.2% | 12.5% | 7.4% | 8.1% | 0.021 | 0.579 |
| Patients regularly needing home visits | 8.7% | 8.4% | 8.3% | 9.5% | 0.370 | 0.277 |
| Patients living in a nursing home | 8.1% | 7.8% | 7.9% | 8.6% | 0.553 | 0.642 |
| Patients who are caregivers | 4.8% | 5.2% | 4.2% | 5.0% | 0.739 | 0.356 |
| Struggling single parents | 4.3% | 4.9% | 3.9% | 4.2% | 0.469 | 0.719 |
| Theme 4: Patient behaviour | ||||||
| Regular patients of the practice | 85.2% | 83.3% | 86.0% | 86.1% | 0.245 | 0.969 |
| Patients, who come with self-diagnoses via media | 13.2% | 14.1% | 13.6% | 11.8% | 0.308 | 0.408 |
| Patients with poor therapy adherence | 11.3% | 9.2% | 12.7% | 11.9% | 0.135 | 0.722 |
| Demanding patients | 11.1% | 11.0% | 11.0% | 11.2% | 0.926 | 0.920 |
| Patients who regularly make excessive demands on GPs time | 7.6% | 9.5% | 7.6% | 6.0% | 0.086 | 0.301 |
| Patients who proactively consult additional specialists for the same problem | 6.7% | 7.5% | 7.8% | 4.7% | 0.008 | 0.016 |
| Frequent attenders | 6.0% | 5.7% | 5.4% | 6.8% | 0.537 | 0.434 |
| Patients who proactively consult different GPs because of the same problem | 2.7% | 2.8% | 3.0% | 2.3% | 0.435 | 0.375 |
Statistically significant results (p≤0.05) are shown in bold.
E/R, comparison 'environs' versus 'rural areas'; GP, general practitioner; MA, multiple answers permitted; U/R, comparison 'urban areas' versus 'rural areas'.