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Comparison of primary care experiences among adults in general outpatient clinics and private general practice clinics in Hong Kong

BACKGROUND: The main goal of Hong Kong's publicly-funded general outpatient clinics (GOPCs) is to provide primary medical services for the financially vulnerable. The objective of the current study was to compare the primary care experiences of GOPC users and the users of care provided by priva...

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Autores principales: Wong, Samuel YS, Kung, Kenny, Griffiths, Sian M, Carthy, Tanya, Wong, Martin CS, Lo, Su V, Chung, Vincent CH, Goggins, William B, Starfield, Barbara
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908092/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20602806
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-397
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author Wong, Samuel YS
Kung, Kenny
Griffiths, Sian M
Carthy, Tanya
Wong, Martin CS
Lo, Su V
Chung, Vincent CH
Goggins, William B
Starfield, Barbara
author_facet Wong, Samuel YS
Kung, Kenny
Griffiths, Sian M
Carthy, Tanya
Wong, Martin CS
Lo, Su V
Chung, Vincent CH
Goggins, William B
Starfield, Barbara
author_sort Wong, Samuel YS
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The main goal of Hong Kong's publicly-funded general outpatient clinics (GOPCs) is to provide primary medical services for the financially vulnerable. The objective of the current study was to compare the primary care experiences of GOPC users and the users of care provided by private general practitioners (GPs) in Hong Kong via a territory-wide telephone survey. METHODS: One thousand adults in Hong Kong aged 18 and above were interviewed by a telephone survey. The modified Chinese translated Primary Care Assessment Tool was used to collect data on respondents' primary care experience. RESULTS: Our results indicated that services provided by GOPC were more often used by female, older, poorer, chronically-ill and less educated population. GOPC participants were also more likely to have visited a specialist or used specialist services (69.7% vs. 52.0%; p < 0.001), although this difference in utilization of specialist services disappeared after adjusting for age (55.7% vs. 52.0%, p = 0.198). Analyses were also performed to asses the relationship between healthcare settings (GOPCs versus private GPs) and primary care quality. Private GP patients achieved higher overall PCAT scores largely due to better accessibility (Mean: 6.88 vs. 8.41, p < 0.001) and person-focused care (Mean: 8.37 vs. 11.69, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed that patients primarily receiving care from private GPs in Hong Kong reported better primary care experiences than those primarily receiving care from GOPCs. This was largely due to the greater accessibility and better interpersonal relationships offered by the private GPs. As most patients use both GOPCs and private GPs, their overall primary care experiences may not be as different as the findings of this study imply.
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spelling pubmed-29080922010-07-22 Comparison of primary care experiences among adults in general outpatient clinics and private general practice clinics in Hong Kong Wong, Samuel YS Kung, Kenny Griffiths, Sian M Carthy, Tanya Wong, Martin CS Lo, Su V Chung, Vincent CH Goggins, William B Starfield, Barbara BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: The main goal of Hong Kong's publicly-funded general outpatient clinics (GOPCs) is to provide primary medical services for the financially vulnerable. The objective of the current study was to compare the primary care experiences of GOPC users and the users of care provided by private general practitioners (GPs) in Hong Kong via a territory-wide telephone survey. METHODS: One thousand adults in Hong Kong aged 18 and above were interviewed by a telephone survey. The modified Chinese translated Primary Care Assessment Tool was used to collect data on respondents' primary care experience. RESULTS: Our results indicated that services provided by GOPC were more often used by female, older, poorer, chronically-ill and less educated population. GOPC participants were also more likely to have visited a specialist or used specialist services (69.7% vs. 52.0%; p < 0.001), although this difference in utilization of specialist services disappeared after adjusting for age (55.7% vs. 52.0%, p = 0.198). Analyses were also performed to asses the relationship between healthcare settings (GOPCs versus private GPs) and primary care quality. Private GP patients achieved higher overall PCAT scores largely due to better accessibility (Mean: 6.88 vs. 8.41, p < 0.001) and person-focused care (Mean: 8.37 vs. 11.69, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Our results showed that patients primarily receiving care from private GPs in Hong Kong reported better primary care experiences than those primarily receiving care from GOPCs. This was largely due to the greater accessibility and better interpersonal relationships offered by the private GPs. As most patients use both GOPCs and private GPs, their overall primary care experiences may not be as different as the findings of this study imply. BioMed Central 2010-07-06 /pmc/articles/PMC2908092/ /pubmed/20602806 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-397 Text en Copyright ©2010 Wong et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wong, Samuel YS
Kung, Kenny
Griffiths, Sian M
Carthy, Tanya
Wong, Martin CS
Lo, Su V
Chung, Vincent CH
Goggins, William B
Starfield, Barbara
Comparison of primary care experiences among adults in general outpatient clinics and private general practice clinics in Hong Kong
title Comparison of primary care experiences among adults in general outpatient clinics and private general practice clinics in Hong Kong
title_full Comparison of primary care experiences among adults in general outpatient clinics and private general practice clinics in Hong Kong
title_fullStr Comparison of primary care experiences among adults in general outpatient clinics and private general practice clinics in Hong Kong
title_full_unstemmed Comparison of primary care experiences among adults in general outpatient clinics and private general practice clinics in Hong Kong
title_short Comparison of primary care experiences among adults in general outpatient clinics and private general practice clinics in Hong Kong
title_sort comparison of primary care experiences among adults in general outpatient clinics and private general practice clinics in hong kong
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2908092/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20602806
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-397
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