European general practitioners’/family physicians’ attitudes towards person-centered care and factors that influence its implementation in everyday practice-preliminary results

Goranka Petricek, Kathryn Hoffmann, Erika Zelko, Sara Willems, Esther Van Poel, Vincent De Prez, Sanda Kreitmayer, Radost Assenova, Zlata Ozvacic Adzic, Venija Cerovečki, Miro Hanževački, Jelena Rakic Matic, Gorka Vuletic, Marion Tomicic, Marko Rađa, Bohumil Seifert, Sabine Bayen, Thomas Frese, Heidrun Lingner, Zoi Tsimtsiou, Peter Torzsa, Claire Collins, Dorien Zwart, Debbie Vermond-Engel, Katarina Stavrikj, Kiril Soleski, Marija Mihajlova, Filip Lokvenec, Torunn Bjerve Eide, Mina Dahli, Adam Windak, Katarzyna Nessler, Krzysztof Studzinski, Bruno Heleno, Joana Azeredo, Iliana-Carmen Busneag, Milena Kostic, Zalika Klemenc Ketis, Davorina Petek, Ksenija Tusek Bunc, Sara Ares Blanco, Jesús González-Lama, Magallon Botaya, Heather L Rogers, David Lerma Irureta, Fátima Méndez-López, Sven Streit, Alexandre Gouveia, Katharina Tabea Jungo, Canan Tuz, Mehmet Ungan, Vildan Mevsim

Keywords: Person-centered care, general practice/family medicine, questionnaire-based study

Background:

Person-centered care (PCC) is widely acknowledged as a core value in family medicine and has been associated with many positive outcomes of care. There has been no comparison of GPs attitudes towards person-centeredness across European countries.

Research questions:

To investigate GPs/FPs attitudes towards person-centeredness. To understand GPs/FPs facilitators and barriers related to practicing PCC. To document obstacles to practicing PCC in practice.

Method:

A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study across 22 European countries (finished in one country, in 10 countries ongoing, in 11 countries finishing the preparatory phase). In each country, the population of GPs/FPs will be reached through the official mailing list of the national medical associations. The study instrument consists of four parts: General information about the doctor and the doctor's office, Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Patient Practitioner Orientation Scale (PPOS) and Facilitators and barriers to PCC in everyday practice. The Ethics Committee, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb approved the project.
The study will be carried out in close collaboration with the European Association for Quality and Patient Safety in Primary Care (EQuiP) and the European General Practice Research Network (EGPRN). The study will be coordinated by the Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine University of Zagreb (Croatia). The project is supported by the EGPRN Grant.

Results:

GPs/FPs attitudes towards person-centeredness will be described and investigated in correlation to socio-demographic data and work stress in each participating European country. GPs/FPs facilitators and barriers to practicing PCC in everyday practice will be analysed. Data will be analysed using software package STATISTICA 7.1 (StatSoft Inc, Tulsa, OK, USA), and P < .05 will be considered statistically significant.

Conclusions:

Regardless of the specific context of care that is highly dependent on the patient, physician and healthcare system characteristics, PCC represents a core value of family medicine that should be implemented in GPs/FPs everyday work across Europe.

Points for discussion: