ArticleCroatian medical journal2019
The influence of general practitioners on access points to health care in a system without gatekeeping: a cross-sectional study in the context of the QUALICOPC project in Austria.
Article in Croatian medical journal, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Continuity in a fragmented healthcare system: - organizational and individual determinants.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2026Article
- Examining patient-centered vs. doctor-centered attitudes among Austrian general practitioners : A cross-sectional study on time constraints and care orientation.Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2026Article
- Patients' perception of changes and consequences after tumor resection : A qualitative study in Austrian patients with musculoskeletal malignancies.Wiener klinische Wochenschrift · 2023Article
- Ethical Dilemmas in Physicians' Consultations with COPD Patients.International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease · 2022Article
- Predicting the Travel Distance of Patients to Access Healthcare Using Deep Neural Networks.IEEE journal of translational engineering in health and medicine · 2022Article
- 'I'm not an anti-vaxer!'-vaccine hesitancy among physicians: a qualitative study.European journal of public health · 2021Article
- Patient Choice and Willingness Toward Gatekeepers as First-Contact Medical Institutions in Chinese Tiered Healthcare Delivery System: A Cross-Sectional Study.Frontiers in public health · 2021Article
- Cross-Sectional Analysis of Difficulties Using Usual Source of Care for People with Disability.Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financingArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimTo assess the rates of specialist visits and visits to hospital emergency departments (ED) among patients in Austria with and without concurrent general practitioner (GP) consultation and among patients with and without chronic disease.
methodsThe cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted in the context of the QUALICOPC project in 2012. Fieldworkers recruited 1596 consecutive patients in 184 GP offices across Austria. The 41-question survey addressed patients' experiences with regard to access to, coordination, and continuity of primary care, as well demographics and health status. Descriptive statistics as well as univariate and multivariate regression models were applied.
resultsMore than 90% of patients identified a GP as a primary source of care. Among all patients, 85.5% reported having visited a specialist and 26.4% the ED at least once in the previous year. Having a usual GP did not change the rate of specialist visits. Additionally, patients with chronic disease had a higher likelihood of presenting to the ED despite having a GP as a usual source of care.
conclusionVisiting specialists in Austria is quite common, and the simple presence of a GP as a usual source of care is insufficient to regulate pathways within the health care system. This can be particularly difficult for chronic care patients who often require care at different levels of the system and show higher frequency of ED presentations.
Indexed as
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31483117PMC6734571What OpenQuestion holds
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