Regular use of the emergency department is associated with a patient's inability to identify a regular primary care physician. Continuity of the physician-patient relationship is largely determined by patient satisfaction, which in turn is influenced by the physician's communication and interpersonal skills. The objective of this study was to estimate the relationship between the communication competency of newly licensed family physicians and the ambulatory health care utilization behaviour of their regular emergency department users. It was hypothesized that physicians with higher levels of competency in patient communication would be the providers of a greater proportion of their patients' ambulatory care than physicians with poorer communication abilities. Consequently, these patients would rely on the emergency department for a smaller proportion of their ambulatory care than patients of physicians with lower levels of communication competency. / In total, 474 newly licensed family physicians and 42 113 regular ED user patients were included in the study population. Analysis was conducted at the level of the physician and patients were attributed to the practice populations of the first study physician they saw. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.21629 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Reid, Tracey. |
| Contributors | Tamblyn, Robyn (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001652282, proquestno: MQ50865, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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