A patients expectations of and satisfaction from primary care medical services

Purpose: To establish the relation between the reasons one registers to a primary care physician and a patient's expectations of and satisfaction from the medical services provided. Material and methods: A total of 422 patients from public and non-public health care centres participated in the research. The research was carried out in 20 institutions of public and non-public centres for primary care in the Swiętokrzyskie Voivodeship. A Patient Request Form was used as the research tool. The Polish version of the Patient Request Form (PRF) is composed of 18 statements concerning different reasons for the present contacting of a general practitioner. Comparative analysis of interval or ratio scale type variables was performed using variance analysis, which in the case of significance of the main effects or interactions was supplemented by post-hoc analysisResults: After a repeated measures analysis of variance was done, a significant variation was found in terms of the type of institution: a public and non-public health care centre (p=0.01955). The effect of the type of expectation also proved significant (p=0.00000). A significant interaction was also found between the type of institution and the kind of PRF (Patient Request Form) (p=0.00985). A significant effect (p=0.00805) was obtained using single-classification analysis of variance upon analysing the assessment of the treatment conditions at a primary care clinic (JUM2) in terms of the type of institution.Conclusions. Patients participating in the study indicated expectations related with an explanation of the illness and obtaining information about test results and further treatment as the reasons for the present registration to a primary care physician. As regards assessment of the treatment conditions (JUM2) at primary care clinics in view of the type of institution and area of services, the patients participating in the study assessed non-public health care centres more highly.