BACKGROUND Physician rating websites (PRWs) allow patients to rate, comment, and discuss physicians' quality. The ability of PRWs to influence patient decision making and health care quality is dependent, in part, on sufficient awareness and usage of PRWs. However, previous studies have found relatively low levels of awareness and usage of PRWs, which has raised concerns about the representativ...

OBJECTIVE to establish which kind of physician communicative responses to patient cues and concerns are appreciated by lay people. METHODS A balanced sample (259 people) was recruited in public places to participate in a full day observation of four videotaped standardized medical consultations. In a two-step procedure participants gave their individual quality ratings of the whole consultati...

OBJECTIVES To study self-rated and physician-rated health, to analyse concordance of the two methods and to examine factors explaining differences between self-rated and physician-rated health. DESIGN Population-based cross-sectional study. SETTING Finnish cohorts of the Seven Countries Study. SUBJECTS 470 men aged 70-89 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Self-administered questionnaire and c...

BACKGROUND Despite the high burden of musculoskeletal (MSK) diseases, few generalists are comfortable teaching MSK physical examination (PE) skills. Patient Partners® in Arthritis (PP®IA) is a standardized patient educator program that could potentially supplement current MSK PE teaching. This study aims to determine if differences exist in MSK PE skills between non-MSK specialist physician and...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the factors potentially associated with the decision of admission to the intensive care unit in Brazil. METHODS An electronic survey of Brazilian physicians working in intensive care units. Fourteen variables that were potentially associated with the decision of admission to the intensive care unit were rated as important (from 1 to 5) by the respondents and were later g...

IMPORTANCE Shared decision making is associated with improved patient-reported outcomes of cancer treatment, but not all patients prefer to participate in medical decisions. Results from studies of the effect of matching between actual and preferred medical decision roles on patients' perceptions of care quality have been conflicting. OBJECTIVES To determine whether shared decision making was...

PURPOSE Although concordance by race and sex in physician-patient relationships has been associated with patient ratings of better care, mechanisms through which concordance leads to better outcomes remains unknown. This investigation examined (1) whether patients' perceptions of similarity to their physicians predicted their ratings of quality of care and (2) whether perceived similarity was i...

Background and Aims. A colonoscopy triage sheet (CTS) integrating 6 hierarchical scheduling priorities based on indications for screening, surveillance, or symptoms was designed for colonoscopy referral. We compared CTS priority ratings by referring physicians and endoscopists, assessing yields. Methods. Retrospective study of consecutive patients. Data were collected on demographics, CTS and e...