Medical Care Utilization Behavior for Treatment of Skin Diseases: A Questionnaire-based Study of Dermatologic Outpatients at a University Hospital

Kwon, Hyunjung; Kwak, Sang Gyu; Park, Joonsoo; Chung, Hyun; Park, Kyung Duck

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Analyzing the medical care utilization behavior and conception of disease treatment of dermatologic patients is important. However, the Korean literature has few studies reporting this information.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study is to evaluate medical care utilization behavior and conception of disease treatment of dermatologic patients.
METHODS
A written questionnaire concerning personal information, treatment behavior, treatment conception, patient satisfaction, and patient compliance was completed by 442 outpatients who visited the department of dermatology at a university hospital.
RESULTS
According to the patients, satisfactory outpatient consultation time for dermatology was 14.2 minutes for the first-visit consultation, and 9.92 minutes for the second-visit consultation. Most (76.0%) patients initially sought the dermatologic clinics for dermatoses, but only 39.8% of patients knew how to distinguish dermatologists from other doctors. Among the participants, 26.7% of patients directly visited a tertiary medical center without visiting primary clinics. Before visiting the hospital, 52.3% of patients sought disease information, and 28.3% of patients obtained information about doctors. Some respondents (39.7%) had a negative attitude about dermatologic medicine because of lay referral. Men were highly satisfied with explanations of drugs and had more positivity towards drugs, but showed low compliance to applying topical medication. Patients of older age, lower education level, and lower economic status had lower satisfaction with explanations given during the examination.
CONCLUSION
We advise dermatologists to play a major role in enlightening patients and constructing proper information delivery systems via diversified routes to prevent unreasonable medical care utilization behavior and groundless negative conceptions about dermatologic treatment.