How well do patient and general practitioner agree about the content of consultations?

OBJECTIVE: To analyse agreement between patients' and general practitioners' perception of content of consultations.

DESIGN: Cross-sectional study based on paired questionnaires answered by patients and general practitioners (GPs).

SETTING: General practices in the County of Funen, Denmark.

SUBJECTS: All 291 GPs in the County were invited to join the investigation, and 137 accepted. All patients who consulted the participating GPs in a 3 day period were included in the investigation. The GPs registered 6021 patients, of whom 3578 (59%) returned the completed questionnaire.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: GPs and patients were asked about the urgency of the consultation, number of problems presented, duration of consultation, and quality of communication. The GPs' and patients' answers were matched, and variables of agreement were made. Patients were furthermore asked about their satisfaction with the consultation.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Agreement for the four matched answers varied from 69% to 83%. Disagreement was observed more often in consultations where the patient's self-evaluated health was poor, the patient was female, had a chronic disease, expected a prescription or felt that the GP had little knowledge of his/her life circumstances. Agreement concerning urgency, number of problems and quality of communication was associated with a higher degree of patient satisfaction.