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An Evaluation of Patients’ Opinions of Primary Care Physicians: the Use of EUROPEP in Gaza Strip-Palestine

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Abstract

The objective of this paper is to identify the level of patients’ satisfaction with primary care physicians. Data were gathered from an exit interview using a standardized questionnaire (EUROPEP) and background variables. A total of 956 patients in fifteen primary health care clinics in Gaza Strip participated. Outcome measures is positive patient satisfaction (good and excellent ratings in the EUROPEP Index). As a results, the mean percentage of positive satisfaction with medical services was poor (41.8%). The poorest performance was recorded for: getting through to the clinic on the phone, being able to speak to physician on the telephone, time spent in waiting rooms and helping the patient deal with emotional problems. The comparison between clinical behaviour dimension and organization of care showed that clinical behaviour was evaluated higher. In conclusion, Palestinian patients expressed overall dissatisfaction with services provided by primary care physicians. These findings present a real challenge for Palestinian authority policy makers and administrators in terms of designing appropriate quality improvement strategies.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge and thank the Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) for funding this study (which is a part of PhD Thesis for Tayser Abu Mourad). Also, many thanks to the staff of the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Crete for their continuous encouragement and support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Crete, P.O. Box 2208, 71003, Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    Tayser Abu Mourad, Adelais Markaki, Athanasios Alegakis, Christos Lionis & Anastas Philalithis

  2. Faculty of Public Health, -Al-Quds University, Jerusalem, Palestine

    Suzanne Shashaa

  3. Minister’s Office-Ministry of Health, Gaza, Palestine

    Tayser Abu Mourad

Authors
  1. Tayser Abu Mourad
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  2. Suzanne Shashaa
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  3. Adelais Markaki
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  4. Athanasios Alegakis
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  5. Christos Lionis
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  6. Anastas Philalithis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christos Lionis.

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Abu Mourad, T., Shashaa, S., Markaki, A. et al. An Evaluation of Patients’ Opinions of Primary Care Physicians: the Use of EUROPEP in Gaza Strip-Palestine. J Med Syst 31, 497–503 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-007-9090-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-007-9090-z

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