Rural and urban patient satisfaction with office visit communication at family practice residency program clinics

Physician behaviors important to rural and urban patients were identified and assessed regarding preferences in physician communication behaviors. The goal was to provide health practitioners insights helpful to improving patient satisfaction.

Consenting rural and urban patients of the University of Illinois-Rockford Family Practice Residency rated the importance of 13 communication-related attributes and their perceived ability to judge quality of care. Demographic data was also collected. Due to non-normal distributions, non-parametric tests were used to analyze the data. SPSS Factor Analysis was used to categorize the communication attributes. SPSS Two Step Cluster Analysis was used to identify natural groups of patients.

326 patients (83.1%) returned surveys. 12 of the 13 attributes were rated highly (mean > 4.0, scale 1-5). Factor analysis grouped the 13 attributes into 2 categories: Effective Interaction (a doctor, who is a good communicator, conveys clinical competence and humanity) and Office Logistic Characteristics (doctors and staff provide written information to patients; maintain a quiet office and privacy to facilitate communication).

Two patient clusters were identified. Technical health care seekers (13.7%) scored significantly below average on wanting effective interaction while interpersonal communicators (86.3%) scored significantly above average in wanting effective interaction.

The qualitative results of previous studies were confirmed as applying to rural and urban patients. Overall, a general similarity of preferences across patient populations exists, with variations by location, age, race, ethnicity, and education level. The value of using personalized office visit communication for rural and urban providers was confirmed and suggests areas for improvement in patient-doctor interaction.