ArticleAnnals of family medicine
Continuity of care: is the personal doctor still important? A survey of general practitioners and family physicians in England and Wales, the United States, and The Netherlands.
Article in Annals of family medicine. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 62 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
62 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Global job satisfaction and fluctuation among community general practitioners: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC health services research · 2024Pooled it
- Effects of continuity of care on health outcomes among patients with diabetes mellitus and/or hypertension: a systematic review.BMC family practice · 2021Pooled it
- The breadth of primary care: a systematic literature review of its core dimensions.BMC health services research · 2010Pooled it
- Association of General Practice Continuity With Hospital Admissions and Costs: A Retrospective Study.Annals of family medicine · 2026Article
- Cardiovascular risk management in patients using antipsychotics: a qualitative feasibility study.BJGP open · 2026Article
- Association between continuity of care and detection of hypertension in Dutch general practice: a 10-year cohort study.BMJ open · 2026Article
- What do patients and clinicians think about continuity in general practice in England? a qualitative study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2026Article
- Who is responsible for follow-up after critical illness? GP, ICU and patient perspectives.Critical care (London, England) · 2025Article
- 'It gives a sense of purpose': a survey exploring GP registrars' views on relational continuity of care.BJGP open · 2025Article
- From awareness to integration: a qualitative interview study on the impact of digital therapeutics on physicians' practices in Germany.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Bridging the trust divide: identifying and addressing critical gaps in patient-provider communication.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Relationship between continuity of primary care and hospitalisation for patients with COPD: population-based cohort study from South Korea.BMJ open respiratory research · 2024Article
- Valuing Outpatients' Perspective on Primary Health Care Services in Greece: A Cross-Sectional Survey on Satisfaction and Personal-Centered Care.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Strategies that facilitate the delivery of exceptionally good patient care in general practice: a qualitative study with patients and primary care professionals.BMC primary care · 2024Article
- Importance of continuity of care from a patient perspective - a cross-sectional study in Swedish health care.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2024Article
- Healthcare professionals' experiences and views of providing continence support and advice to people living at home with dementia: "That's a carer's job".BMC geriatrics · 2024Article
- Continuity of health care: measurement and application in two rural counties of Guangxi Province, China.BMC health services research · 2023Review
- Article
- Continuity and coordination of care in highly selected chronic cancer patients treated with multiple repeat radiation therapy.Radiation oncology (London, England) · 2021Article
- Optimising personal continuity for older patients in general practice: a study protocol for a cluster randomised stepped wedge pragmatic trial.BMC family practice · 2021Article
2 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeWe determined the reported value general practitioners/family physicians in 3 different health care systems place on the various types of continuity of care.
methodsWe conducted a postal questionnaire survey in England and Wales, the United States, and The Netherlands. The participants were 1,523 general practitioners/family physicians (568 from England and Wales, 453 from the United States and 502 from The Netherlands). Our main outcome measures were the perceived importance of the types of continuity of care and doctor or practice characteristics that may influence attitudes toward personal continuity of care.
resultsThe response rates were England and Wales 60% (568/946), United States 47% (453/963) and Netherlands 76% (502/660). The doctors in all 3 countries felt strongly that personal continuity remained an important aspect of good-quality care to their patients. Within a given health care system, doctors' personal and practice characteristics explained only a small part of the variance in attitudes toward the provision of personal continuity of care (England and Wales and The Netherlands r2 = 0.04, United States r2 = 0.01). The doctors in all 3 countries felt that they were currently able to provide all 3 types of continuity of care, although doctors in England and Wales were least positive about the provision of informational and management continuity across the primary-secondary care divide.
conclusionsGeneral practitioners/family physicians from 3 differing health care systems all place high value on being able to provide personal continuity of care to patients. Personal continuity of care remains a core value of general practice/family medicine and should be taken account of by policy makers when redesigning health care systems.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.