Patient satisfaction and the content of general practice consultations.

Interviews conducted with 81 patients after their initial visit with trainee general practitioners in the UK indicated that patient satisfaction was associated with 3 factors: 1) the patient feeling understood, 2) the patient actually telling the doctor what he or she wanted from the visit, and 3) increasing age of the patient. Satisfaction was not associated with the patients' feeling improvement in their medical problem or having their specific requests granted. 67 patients (83%) had specific requests they wanted to make of the general practitioner, most commonly prescription drugs (45%) or examination (19%). However, only 25 patients (37%) actually expressed these requests to the doctor. These findings suggest the importance of encouraging patients to express their requests. Such requests can provide the doctor with information about the patient's wishes, health beliefs, and expectations. In addition to improved understanding of patient needs, the encouragement of verbalization of requests will result in more effective physician-patient communication and thus greater compliance in the utilization of health services.