Keywords: general practitioner, satisfaction, communication, doctor-patient consultation

Background:

Patient care is teamwork, in which proper cooperation between healthcare professionals and the patients is crucial and good communication is a key factor. The quality of medical communication has a significant impact on patient satisfaction, which is directly related to patients' adherence, which finally influence the effectiveness of medical activities. On the other hand, good communication positively influences doctors' satisfaction, which has a protective effect in terms of burnout.

Aim of the study:

The aim of our research to examine patients’ and doctors’ satisfaction related to doctor-patient consultations in rural family practices and the examination of the potential influencing factors, especially burnout and mental health problems.

Methodology:

We used self-administered questionnaires in a cross-sectional study among rural general practitioners and their patients. Before the research, the doctors fulfilled a preliminary questionnaire and after each consultations, the doctor and the patient fulfill an evaluation questionnaire. We collected sociodemographic and work related data. To measure patient satisfaction with the consultation we used the validated Communication Assesment Tool (CAT). We assessed burnout with the Maslach Burnout Inventory and calculated the proportion of physicians suffering from low, intermediate and high degree of burnout. We used shortened Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-9) and short Beck hopelessness scale to measure depression and hopelessness. Data collection was carried out between December 2024 and May 2025.

Results:

The research is currently in the data collection phase. Our aim is to involve at least 10 rural general practitioners and analyze 400 doctor-patient consultations. We plan to present our results first time at the 14th EURIPA Rural Health Forum.

Conclusions:

Our results can help better knunderstand the patients' and doctors' opinions about consultations and highlight the most important influencing factors. With the implementation of these findings, we can improve the quality of care in rural family practices.