PATIENTS OF INTERNISTS IN HOSPITAL OUTPATIENT DEPARTMENTS AND IN PRIVATE-PRACTICE

  • 1 January 1978
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 119  (8) , 891-895
Abstract
To test the contention that patients in outpatient departments and private practices differ, variables were assessed that might affect the process and the outcome of medical care. Two groups of 60 patients consulting 9 Montreal [Canada] internists who worked in private practice and in an outpatient department of a university teaching hospital were surveyed. The internists served as their own controls. The 2 groups of patients were compared for 57 demographic, socioeconomic, access, utilization, attitudinal and current medical status variables. Financial factors were minimized by the existence of universal health insurance. The outpatient group was older, less fluent in English, less likely to be employed, less educated, less wealthy, more dependent on public transportation, more disabled, more likely to use ambulatory services, more anxious about health and more skeptical about physicians, yet more dependent on them than the private practice group. The outpatient group tended to have more active, significant medical conditions and to receive more prescriptions for medication than the private practice group, in contrast to the national patterns in the practice of internal medicine in the USA. Medical educators, researchers, administrators and providers of health care who assume that these 2 groups of patients are comparable must re-evaluate their practices.