ArticleBMC primary care2026
Saying goodbye to my doctor: a qualitative study on the experiences of chronically ill patients when facing the termination of a long-term treatment relationship in Hong Kong.
Article in BMC primary care, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundHaving a family doctor is beneficial for patient care. However, it is not uncommon for a treatment relationship to be terminated. Doctors are suggested to implement proper transition procedures should this occur. Nevertheless, the literature shows that patients suffer harm even when a doctor has organized a care transition. Few studies have suggested appropriate procedures for how doctors should transition care upon the ending of the doctor-patient relationship, and the impact on patients following treatment relationship termination has been rarely documented. This study fills the literature gap by investigating a group of chronically ill patients in Hong Kong on how they experienced the termination of a long-term treatment relationship by their family doctors.
methodsThis study adopts an explanatory model and critical medical anthropology as the theoretical framework and employs a qualitative descriptive approach with individual semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted from June to September 2025 to investigate the experiences of 35 chronically ill patients following the termination of the treatment relationship initiated by their familiar doctors. The coding and analysis of the data were based on a thematic analysis.
resultsThe experiences of the participants were negative and unpleasant when their treatment relationship was terminated by their doctors. Five themes were derived from the data as follows: feeling uncertain about future care, feeling guilty for the new doctor, feeling abandoned, having no motivation to find a new long-term doctor, and feeling incomplete without a formal goodbye. The international guidelines suggest that doctors mostly emphasize legal and ethical procedures to reduce their legal liability when they terminate a treatment relationship, but the participants expected a humanistic and emotional approach when the treatment relationship was terminated.
conclusionMicro experiences of the participants could be due to the macro social structure of Hong Kong society. Merely organizing a care transition, which is the current medical guideline and practice when a treatment relationship has to be terminated, may not be enough for patients in this Chinese context. Care transition plans are suggested to emphasize emotional adaptation preparation, as some participants' accounts suggest the importance of symbolic closure resembling ritual transition.
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.