RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 General practice and patient characteristics associated with personal continuity: a mixed-methods study
JF British Journal of General Practice
JO Br J Gen Pract
FD British Journal of General Practice
SP e780
OP e789
DO 10.3399/BJGP.2022.0038
VO 72
IS 724
A1 Marije T te Winkel
A1 Pauline Slottje
A1 Anja JTCM de Kruif
A1 Birgit I Lissenberg-Witte
A1 Rob J van Marum
A1 Henk J Schers
A1 Annemarie A Uijen
A1 Jettie Bont
A1 Otto R Maarsingh
YR 2022
UL http://bjgp.org/content/72/724/e780.abstract
AB Background Personal continuity of care is a core value of general practice. It is increasingly threatened by societal and healthcare changes.Aim To investigate the association between personal continuity and both practice and patient characteristics; and to incorporate GPs’ views to enrich and validate the quantitative findings.Design and setting A mixed-methods study based on observational, routinely collected healthcare data from 269 478 patients from 48 Dutch general practices (2013–2018) and interviews with selected GPs.Method First, four different personal continuity outcome measures were calculated relating to eight practice and 12 patient characteristics using multilevel linear regression analyses. Second, a thematic analysis was performed of semi-structured interviews with 10 GPs to include their views on factors contributing to personal (dis) continuity. These GPs worked at the 10 practices with the largest difference between calculated and model-estimated personal continuity.Results Both a larger number of usual GPs working in a practice and a larger percentage of patient contacts with locum GPs were dose-dependently associated with lower personal continuity (highest versus lowest quartile −0.094 and −0.092, respectively, P<0.001), whereas days since registration with the general practice was dose-dependently associated with higher personal continuity (highest versus lowest quartile +0.017, P<0.001). Older age, number of chronic conditions, and contacts were also associated with higher personal continuity. The in-depth interviews identified three key themes affecting personal continuity: team composition, practice organisation, and the personal views of the GPs.Conclusion Personal continuity is associated with practice and patient characteristics. The dose-dependent associations suggest a causal relationship and, complemented by GPs’ views, may provide practical targets to improve personal continuity directly.