چکیده (انگلیسی):

Background:No study has assessed the association between patients’ and doctors’ gender and patient satisfaction
with organizational aspects of health care in primary care. However, just like satisfaction regarding communication
styles or technical skills, satisfaction towards organization of the general practitioner (GP) practice could also
depend on doctors’ and/or patients’ gender. Different expectations between female and male patients regarding
the organization of the practice or different ways of organizing care delivery between female and male GPs could
act on this satisfaction. We aimed to compare female and male patients’ satisfaction towards their GP overall, and
according to GPs’ gender.
Methods:In a cross-sectional study in Geneva, 23 randomly selected GPs (participation rate: 31 %) were asked to
recruit up to 100 consecutive patients coming to the practice for a scheduled medical consultation. The patients
completed an anonymous questionnaire about their satisfaction with their GP. Patient satisfaction was assessed
using the six questions from the Europep questionnaire regarding organizational aspects of health care in terms
of accessibility and availability, and presented in two different ways: % of patients very satisfied and mean score
(SD). Multivariate analyses adjusting for patient and GP characteristics were conducted to compare outcomes
between genders.
Results:One thousand six hundred thirty-seven patients agreed to participate (participation rate: 97 %, women:
63 %, mean age: 54 years). The majority of patients were very satisfied (women 96.2 %, men 95.3 %,p=0.38).
Mean satisfaction scores were slightly higher in women (for overall satisfaction: women 4.7/5 (SD 0.6), men 4.6/5
(SD 0.6), p= 0.02) and in women visiting male GPs (women 4.6 (SD 0.6), men 4.5 (SD 0.6),p= 0.01), and the
gender differences showed consistency across satisfaction items. These differences were small and no longer
statistically significant in multivariate analyses.
Conclusions:These findings suggest that patients are highly satisfied with the organization of their GP’s practice,
regardless of patients’ and GPs’ gender. As patients’ and GPs’ gender are known to influence patient satisfaction
towards primary care delivery and as the current study is the first to explore this aspect in relation to organizational
aspects of GP practice, further studies are needed in various primary care settings to confirm our results.