ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2017
Wasting the doctor's time? A video-elicitation interview study with patients in primary care.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on delays and disruptions in cancer care services: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Nature cancer · 2025Pooled it
- Interventions to increase patient and family involvement in escalation of care for acute life-threatening illness in community health and hospital settings.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- A scoping review of how the candidacy framework has been used in research on access to general practice.Journal of health services research & policy · 2026Article
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- What's been tried: a curated catalogue of efforts to improve access to general practice.BJGP open · 2025Article
- Multimorbidity and person-centred care in a socioeconomically deprived community: a qualitative study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2024Article
- Understanding access to general practice through the lens of candidacy: a critical review of the literature.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2024Review
- Opportunities and Challenges for Augmented Reality in Family Caregiving: Qualitative Video Elicitation Study.JMIR formative research · 2024Article
- Open AI meets open notes: surveillance capitalism, patient privacy and online record access.Journal of medical ethics · 2024Article
- Expanding general practice with interprofessional teams: a mixed-methods patient perspective study.BMC health services research · 2023Article
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- A Privacy-Preserving Audit and Feedback System for the Antibiotic Prescribing of General Practitioners: Survey Study.JMIR formative research · 2022Article
- The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Diagnosis of Skin Cancer Cases in North Cancer Alliance and Scotland.Cureus · 2022Article
- Why do people take part in atrial fibrillation screening? Qualitative interview study in English primary care.BMJ open · 2022Article
- What matters most in acute care: an interview study with older people living with frailty.BMC geriatrics · 2022Article
- Awareness and utilization of urgent care services among patients attending Al-Wazarat PHCC in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 2020.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2021Article
- Health Care Professionals' Experiences With the Use of Video Consultation: Qualitative Study.JMIR formative research · 2021Article
- Short-term outcomes of a COVID-adapted triage pathway for colorectal cancer detection.Colorectal disease : the official journal of the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Reaching a decision about whether and when to visit the doctor can be a difficult process for the patient. An early visit may cause the doctor to wonder why the patient chose to consult when the disease was self-limiting and symptoms would have settled without medical input. A late visit may cause the doctor to express dismay that the patient waited so long before consulting. In the UK primary care context of constrained resources and government calls for cautious healthcare spending, there is all the more pressure on both doctor and patient to meet only when necessary. A tendency on the part of health professionals to judge patients' decisions to consult as appropriate or not is already described. What is less well explored is the patient's experience of such judgment. Drawing on data from 52 video-elicitation interviews conducted in the English primary care setting, the present paper examines how patients seek to legitimise their decision to consult, and their struggles in doing so. The concern over wasting the doctor's time is expressed repeatedly through patients' narratives. Referring to the sociological literature, the history of 'trivia' in defining the role of general practice is discussed, and current public discourses seeking to assist the patient in developing appropriate consulting behaviour are considered and problematised. Whilst the patient is expected to have sufficient insight to inform timely consulting behaviour, it becomes clear that any attempt on the part of doctor or patient to define legitimate help-seeking is in fact elusive. Despite this, a significant moral dimension to what is deemed appropriate consulting by doctors and patients remains. The notion of candidacy is suggested as a suitable framework and way forward for encompassing these struggles to negotiate eligibility for medical time.
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