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Patients’ Experiences, Expectations, Motivations, and Perspectives around Urinary Tract Infection Care in General Practice: A Qualitative Interview Study

While there are many alternatives to antibiotics for the symptomatic treatment of urinary tract infections (UTIs), their application in practice is limited. Among other things, general practitioners (GPs) often feel pressure from patients to prescribe antibiotics. To gain a better understanding of w...

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Autores principales: Cox, Stefan, Vleeming, Maud, Giorgi, Wesley, Dinant, Geert-Jan, Cals, Jochen, de Bont, Eefje
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9952089/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36830152
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics12020241
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author Cox, Stefan
Vleeming, Maud
Giorgi, Wesley
Dinant, Geert-Jan
Cals, Jochen
de Bont, Eefje
author_facet Cox, Stefan
Vleeming, Maud
Giorgi, Wesley
Dinant, Geert-Jan
Cals, Jochen
de Bont, Eefje
author_sort Cox, Stefan
collection PubMed
description While there are many alternatives to antibiotics for the symptomatic treatment of urinary tract infections (UTIs), their application in practice is limited. Among other things, general practitioners (GPs) often feel pressure from patients to prescribe antibiotics. To gain a better understanding of why this happens and where this pressure originates from, we investigated experiences, expectations, motivations, and perspectives of patients with UTIs in general practice. During this qualitative study we performed 14 semi-structured online interviews among female UTI patients in general practice. Interviews were based on a topic list derived from sensitising concepts. All the interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using a constant comparative technique. Three main categories emerged from the data; (1) experienced versus unexperienced patients with UTI, (2) patient’s lack of knowledge, and (3) patients feeling understood. Inexperienced patients consult a general practitioner for both diagnosis and symptom relief, while experienced patients seem to consult specifically to obtain antibiotics. In addition, patients have a lack of knowledge with regard to the diagnosis, treatment, self-care, and cause of UTIs. Finally, patients’ satisfaction is increased by involving them more in the process of decision making, so they feel understood and taken seriously. Patients’ expectations in UTI management in general practice often arise during their first experience(s) and play a major role in subsequent episodes. In conclusion, preventing misconceptions is especially important in the inexperienced patient group, as this may prevent future overtreatment of UTIs. In addition, involving patients in the decision making process will lead to greater understanding of the GP’s treatment choices.
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spelling pubmed-99520892023-02-25 Patients’ Experiences, Expectations, Motivations, and Perspectives around Urinary Tract Infection Care in General Practice: A Qualitative Interview Study Cox, Stefan Vleeming, Maud Giorgi, Wesley Dinant, Geert-Jan Cals, Jochen de Bont, Eefje Antibiotics (Basel) Article While there are many alternatives to antibiotics for the symptomatic treatment of urinary tract infections (UTIs), their application in practice is limited. Among other things, general practitioners (GPs) often feel pressure from patients to prescribe antibiotics. To gain a better understanding of why this happens and where this pressure originates from, we investigated experiences, expectations, motivations, and perspectives of patients with UTIs in general practice. During this qualitative study we performed 14 semi-structured online interviews among female UTI patients in general practice. Interviews were based on a topic list derived from sensitising concepts. All the interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using a constant comparative technique. Three main categories emerged from the data; (1) experienced versus unexperienced patients with UTI, (2) patient’s lack of knowledge, and (3) patients feeling understood. Inexperienced patients consult a general practitioner for both diagnosis and symptom relief, while experienced patients seem to consult specifically to obtain antibiotics. In addition, patients have a lack of knowledge with regard to the diagnosis, treatment, self-care, and cause of UTIs. Finally, patients’ satisfaction is increased by involving them more in the process of decision making, so they feel understood and taken seriously. Patients’ expectations in UTI management in general practice often arise during their first experience(s) and play a major role in subsequent episodes. In conclusion, preventing misconceptions is especially important in the inexperienced patient group, as this may prevent future overtreatment of UTIs. In addition, involving patients in the decision making process will lead to greater understanding of the GP’s treatment choices. MDPI 2023-01-24 /pmc/articles/PMC9952089/ /pubmed/36830152 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics12020241 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Cox, Stefan
Vleeming, Maud
Giorgi, Wesley
Dinant, Geert-Jan
Cals, Jochen
de Bont, Eefje
Patients’ Experiences, Expectations, Motivations, and Perspectives around Urinary Tract Infection Care in General Practice: A Qualitative Interview Study
title Patients’ Experiences, Expectations, Motivations, and Perspectives around Urinary Tract Infection Care in General Practice: A Qualitative Interview Study
title_full Patients’ Experiences, Expectations, Motivations, and Perspectives around Urinary Tract Infection Care in General Practice: A Qualitative Interview Study
title_fullStr Patients’ Experiences, Expectations, Motivations, and Perspectives around Urinary Tract Infection Care in General Practice: A Qualitative Interview Study
title_full_unstemmed Patients’ Experiences, Expectations, Motivations, and Perspectives around Urinary Tract Infection Care in General Practice: A Qualitative Interview Study
title_short Patients’ Experiences, Expectations, Motivations, and Perspectives around Urinary Tract Infection Care in General Practice: A Qualitative Interview Study
title_sort patients’ experiences, expectations, motivations, and perspectives around urinary tract infection care in general practice: a qualitative interview study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9952089/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36830152
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics12020241
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