Parallel paths? Patient and doctor priorities in psychiatric outpatient consultations.

BACKGROUND: In England, a large proportion of general adult psychiatric consultations are outpatient appointments. AIM: To assess whether patients and doctors agree on the key components of outpatient consultations.
METHOD: Separate patient and doctor focus groups were conducted to generate perceived key components of the outpatient consultation for each group. A self-report questionnaire was then constructed, to assess how important these key components were considered to be by both patients and doctors in the clinical setting. The key components were rated in relation to specific consultations the participants were about to have. Paired responses were collated and analysed for similarity indices between patients and their doctors.
RESULTS: One-hundred-and-three patient-doctor pairs completed the pre-appointment questionnaire. There was no statistically significant agreement detected between pairs of patients and doctors on the importance of any of the six key components of a general adult outpatient consultation generated by the patient and doctor focus groups.
CONCLUSIONS: Patients and their psychiatrists disagree on the key components of an outpatient consultation. However, patient priorities are central to service delivery. Therefore, listening to the patients' priorities highlighted in this article is important to achieve patient-centred services.