BACKGROUND Recently, the Nijmegen Continuity Questionnaire (NCQ) was developed. It aims to measure continuity of care from the patient perspective across primary and secondary care settings. Initial pilot testing proved promising. AIM To further examine the validity, discriminative ability, and reliability of the NCQ. DESIGN A prospective psychometric instrument validation study in primary...

BACKGROUND Continuity of medical care is widely believed to lead to better health outcomes and service utilization patterns for patients. Most continuity studies, however, have only used administrative claims to assess longitudinal continuity with a provider. As a result, little is known about how interpersonal continuity (the patient's experience at the visit) relates to improved health outcom...

BACKGROUND New care modes in primary care may affect patients' experienced continuity of care. AIM To analyse whether experienced continuity for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) changes after different care modes are introduced, and to analyse the relationship between continuity of care and patients' quality of life. DESIGN AND SETTING Randomised controlled trial ...

OBJECTIVES The aims of this research were to generate a set of time-variant measures of continuity of outpatient care using administrative data, and to evaluate the validity of these measures for persons in the community with serious mental illness (SMI) who use public mental health services. DATA SOURCES Individuals with SMI were identified using multistage random sampling from shelters, str...

PURPOSE We wanted to undertake a critical review of the medical literature regarding the relationships between interpersonal continuity of care and the outcomes and cost of health care. METHODS A search of the MEDLINE database from 1966 through April 2002 was conducted by the primary author to find original English language articles focusing on interpersonal continuity of patient care. The ar...

Recent changes in the organisation of primary health care have increased the range of professionals that patients may encounter, leading to renewed interest in the importance of continuity of care. To assess whether organisational changes have had an impact on continuity, it is necessary to define and measure the term. Researchers seeking to assess continuity face many conceptual and practical ...

BACKGROUND Continuity is a tenant central to family practice. Continuity is associated with improved satisfaction in populations that can easily change providers. However, little is known about the importance of continuity where patients are assigned providers. METHODS A pretested survey was distributed to patients of a family practice residency clinic in a military medical center for a week'...

BACKGROUND Continuity of care is a basic tenant of primary care practice. However, the evidence on the importance of continuity of care for older adults with complex conditions is mixed. OBJECTIVE To assess the relationship between measurement of continuity of care, number of chronic conditions, and health outcomes. DESIGN We analyzed data from a cohort of 1,600 US older adults with diabete...