Patient-centered Attitudes in Primary Care Patients

Background: As the society changes to consumer-oriented trend, physician-patient relationship is in need of change. Patients tend to be highly satisfied when their physicians show more patient centered view or have similar character with their own. There have been studies on the patient-centeredness of medical students and physicians in Korea, but none was performed on the patient's patient-centeredness. The aim of this study was to investigate attitudes toward patient-centeredness and its associated factors in patients who visited local family practitioner's clinics. Methods: The subjects were 359 patients who visited 10 local family practitioner's clinics from March 1 to July 1, 2005.Our survey utilized PPOS (Patient-Practitioner Orientation Scale) which composed of Sharing (sharing information, take part in decision making) and Caring (respecting one's feelings, interpersonal relationships) subscale. It also included demographic variables and health status by self questionnaire. Factors affecting patient-centeredness was analyzed via the t-test, ANOVA and Pearson Correlation. Results: The total PPOS score was 3.85. The Sharing and Caring subscales were 3.68 and 4.02, respectively. We found that the patients, who were functionally healthier, younger than 40 years old, college-educated, and earning higher income, were significantly more patient-centered. Conclusion: The patients' desire to obtain medical information and to take part in decision making (Sharing) were lower than that of patients' expectations for gaining respect of one's feelings and interpersonal relationships (Caring). The patients, who were healthier, younger, more educated, and earn more income, were shown to be significantly more patient-centered.