Observational studyPloS one2019
General practitioners' consultation counts and associated factors in Swiss primary care - A retrospective observational study.
Observational study in PloS one, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Access to general practice appointments and sustainable change: a focused ethnographic case study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2026Article
- Changes in office-hours doctor and nurse consultations: six-year register-based follow-up cohort study in the public primary health care of City of Vantaa, Finland.International journal of circumpolar health · 2025Article
- Mismatch between registration possibilities and patients' local health needs, a simulated patient survey in the Paris metropolitan area.Human resources for health · 2025Article
- Standardizing Generalist Definitions to Improve Evidence in General Medicine: Addressing Diverse Interpretations and Lack of Consistency.International journal of general medicine · 2024Article
- Impact of physician empathy on patient outcomes: a gender analysis.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2022Article
- Time Trends and Factors Associated with Antibiotic Prescribing in Swiss Primary Care (2008 to 2020).Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- Trends and Between-Physician Variation in Laboratory Testing: A Retrospective Longitudinal Study in General Practice.Journal of clinical medicine · 2020Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundResearch on individual general practitioner (GP) workload, e.g. in terms of consultation counts, is scarce. Accurate measures are desirable because GPs' consultation counts might be related to their work satisfaction and arguably, there is a limit to the number of consultations a GP can hold per day without jeopardizing quality of care. Moreover, understanding the association of consultation counts with GP characteristics is crucial given current trends in general practice, such as the increasing proportion of female GPs, part-time work and group practices.
aimThe aim of this study was to describe GPs' consultation counts and efficiency and to assess associations with GP and practice variables.
methodsIn this retrospective observational study we used routine data in electronic medical records obtained from 245 Swiss GPs in 2018. We described GPs' daily consultation counts as well as their efficiencies (i.e. total consultation counts adjusted for part-time work) and used hierarchical linear models to find associations of the GPs' total consultation counts in 2018 with GP- and practice-level variables.
resultsThe median daily consultation count was 28 over all GPs and 33 for full-time working GPs. Total consultation counts increased non-linearly with part-time status, with high part-time working GPs (60%-90% of full-time) being equally or more efficient than full-time workers. Excluding part-time status in the regression resulted in higher consultation counts for male GPs working in single practices and with older patients, whereas part-time adjusted consultation counts were unaffected by GP gender and practice type.
conclusionFemale gender, part-time work in the range of 60%-90% of full-time, and working in group practices do not decrease GP efficiency. However, the challenge of recruiting sufficient numbers of GPs remains.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.