Major Determinants of Consumer Satisfaction with Primary Care in Different Health Systems

It is becoming increasingly recognized that patient or ‘consumer’views should be taken into account as part of a comprehensiveassessment of quality of care. This paper reports a study carriedout in four European countries about consumer satisfaction withprimary care. The results showed that higher levels of generalsatisfaction with general practitioner services were found inCanterbury (95%) and loannina (87%) than Belgrade (85%) andMoscow (62%). Further analysis of the data showed that in allfour cities the key dimensions of satisfaction with generalpractitioner care are both the nature in quality of the doctor-patientrelationship and the GP's professional skills. The implicationsof these findings are discussed.