Patients' and doctors' expectations in general practice

Introduction. Patients' expectations are defined as patients' needs, demands or wishes before consultation. In communication general practitioner-patient are also very important general practitioners' expectations. Patients and their doctors can have different and/or unrecognized expectations. Objective. Evaluation of patients' expectations before, and fulfillment of both patients' and doctors' expectations after the consultation, and to estimate fulfillment of patients' expectations, matching of fulfillment of patients' expectations before, and doctors' fulfilled expectations after consultation, as well as matching of patients' and doctors' met expectations, using analysis of questionnaire and some questions from questionnaire. Method. In this cross-sectional study, standardized method from 'Study of patients' expectations and outcomes of doctor-patient interaction' was used. Patients and general practitioners from Primary Health Care Centers from Belgrade, Novi Sad, Kraljevo and Nis were included according to criteria in survey, after given agreement. In study were included 1600 consecutive patients who visited general practitioners and 32 doctors who were consulted by those patients during one working week in period April July 2004. Results. Analysis of 4 statements concerning patients' expectations demonstrated that almost all patients (98.5%) expected doctor to help them to explain their problems leisurely and more than 7/10 of patients expected the doctor to examine them thoroughly. After consultation, expectations were met in almost one-half of patients. Discussion. Patients and doctors' expectations in general practice are insufficiently researched. Our survey is cross-sectional study, for which the instrument of investigation was translated from English to Serbian language and culturally adapted. In our survey, almost all patients (98.5%) expected doctor to help them to explain their problems easier. Conclusion. Patients in general practice in our country have high expectations and they are met in high degree. Matching of patients and doctors' expectations in general practice was high.