Summary information

Study title

Outpatients and their Doctors: a Study of Patients, Potential Patients, General Practitioners and Hospital Doctors, 1989

Creator

Cartwright, A., Institute for Social Studies in Medical Care

Windsor, J., Institute for Social Studies in Medical Care

Study number / PID

2984 (UKDA)

10.5255/UKDA-SN-2984-1 (DOI)

Data access

Restricted

Series

Not available

Abstract

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The purpose of the study is twofold:
1. To look at the responsiveness of outpatient services to patients; their experiences and views of the process of referral and the extent and circumstances in which they want and seek a referral.
2. To consider the outcome of attendance at outpatient clinics as perceived by patients, general practitioners and hospital consultants and to examine the extent of congruence between these three viewpoints.
Main Topics:

The process of referral; the appropriateness of referral; potential patients (those who would like to have been referred but were not); social implications for patients of attendance; reasons for referral and what happens at clinics; perceptions of outcomes in terms of recovery and discharge; relationships between patients, general practitioners and hospital doctors.

Health care services and policies

Data collection period

01/04/1989 - 01/08/1990

Country

England

Time dimension

Cross-sectional (one-time) study

Analysis unit

Individuals

Groups

National

General practitioners

Medical consultants

Patients

Universe

People in 10 areas in England who attended outpatient clinics in the three months January to March 1989, or who consulted their general practitioners in the time period and wanted to be referred to hospital but were not; their general practitioners; their medical consultants.

Sampling procedure

Patients: systematic sample from electoral registers of each of ten randomly selected areas of England
Doctors: total of patients sample

Kind of data

Not available

Data collection mode

Face-to-face interview

Postal survey

Patients (to establish eligibility), general practitioners and consultants (of all eligible patients) were surveyed by post. Eligible patients were then interviewed face-to-face.

Publisher

UK Data Service

Publication year

1993

Terms of data access

The Data Collection is available to UK Data Service registered users subject to the End User Licence Agreement.

Commercial use of the data requires approval from the data owner or their nominee. The UK Data Service will contact you.

Cartwright, A. and Windsor, J. (1993) Outpatients and their doctors :: a study of patients, potential patients, general practitioners and hospital doctors, London: HMSO.
Windsor, J. (1992) 'What can you ask about?: the effect on response to a postal screen of asking about two potentially sensitive questions', Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health