Korean J Fam Med.  2011 May;32(4):226-233. 10.4082/kjfm.2011.32.4.226.

Patients' Assessment of Community Primary and Non-primary Care Physicians in Seoul City of South Korea

• Jung JW
• Sung NJ
• Park KH
• Kim SW
• Lee JH

• KMID: 2234803
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4082/kjfm.2011.32.4.226

Abstract

BACKGROUND
It is important to know the current level of primary care performance in order to evaluate and plan for desirable health policy. We tried to compare patient's assessment of primary (family physician, general practitioner, internist, pediatrician, and general surgeon) and non-primary (the other specialties) care physicians.
METHODS
Study subjects were physicians of primary care clinics in Seoul. The study subject evaluators were Seoul citizens who were selected by a list-assisted random digit dialing sampling method and who had visited their primary care clinic on six or more occasions over a period of more than 6 months as a usual source of care. The modified version of the Korean Primary Care Assessment Tool was used for the evaluation of primary care performance. The data were collected with the aid of a computer-assisted telephone interview system from June 29 to July 22, 2009.
RESULTS
The data on 260 individuals were used for analysis. The mean scores of primary and non-primary care physician group were respectively 1.19 and 0.85 in the comprehensiveness domain, 1.00 and 0.83 in the coordination domain, 1.54 and 1.31 in the family/community orientation, and 1.24 and 0.99 as an average of 3 domains above. The scores in the comprehensiveness domain and the average of 3 domains were significantly higher in the primary than in the nonprimary care physician group.
CONCLUSION
Primary care physicians showed superior performance compared to non-primary care physicians in comprehensiveness domain and in the average of comprehensiveness, coordination, and family/community orientation domains.

Keyword

Primary Care; Patient Satisfaction; List-Assisted Random Digit Dialing; Physician; Clinic

MeSH Terms

General Practitioners
Health Policy
Humans
Interviews as Topic
Orientation
Patient Satisfaction
Physicians, Primary Care
Primary Health Care
Republic of Korea