Decreasing trends in patient satisfaction, accessibility and continuity of care in Finnish primary health care – a 14-year follow-up questionnaire study

BMC Family Practice

Research Article

Doris Holmberg-Marttila¹  Risto Raivio²  Juhani Jääskeläinen³  Kari J Mattila⁴ 

[1] Centre of General Practice, Pirkanmaa Hospital District, P.O. Box 2000, FI-33521, Tampere, Finland;Primary Care Unit, Joint Authority for Päijät-Häme Social and Health Care Group, Keskussairaalankatu 7, FI-15850, Lahti, Finland;School of Medicine, Department of General Practice, FI-33014 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland;School of Medicine, Department of General Practice, FI-33014 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland;School of Medicine, Department of General Practice, FI-33014 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland;Centre of General Practice, Pirkanmaa Hospital District, P.O. Box 2000, FI-33521, Tampere, Finland;

关键词: Accessibility;    Continuity;    Patient satisfaction;    Primary health care;    Questionnaire survey;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2296-15-98

 received in 2013-11-29, accepted in 2014-05-07,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThe aim here was to explore trends in patient satisfaction with primary health care and its accessibility and continuity, and to explore whether through reforms and improvements some of the essential goals had been achieved over a 14-year period of time in Finland.MethodsNine questionnaire surveys were conducted over a period of 14 years among patients attending within one week in the 65 health centres in the Tampere University Hospital catchment area. A total of 147,394 responded out of a sample of 333,648 patients. The response rate varied yearly from 53% to 37%.ResultsPatient satisfaction with care in Finnish health centres decreased by nearly 9 percentage units from 1998 to 2011. The fall-off was most marked in the age-group over 64 years. There was a 20 percentage unit’s reduction in ease of access as reported by patients. Respondents also reported that the continuity of care had deteriorated.ConclusionsDespite major reforms in Finnish health care policy, patients seem to be less satisfied. Our findings challenge both Finnish authorities and GPs to improve the accessibility and continuity of care in primary health services.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Raivio et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014