Consumer satisfaction among patients and their general practitioners about involving nurse specialists in primary care for patients with urinary incontinence.
BACKGROUND
Urinary incontinence (UI) is a very common problem, but existing guidelines on UI are not followed. To bring care in line with guidelines, we planned an intervention to involve nurse specialists on UI in primary care and assessed this in a randomised controlled trial. Alongside this intervention, we assessed consumer satisfaction among patients and general practitioners (GPs).


METHODS
Patients' satisfaction with the care provided by either nurse specialists (intervention group) or GPs (control group), respectively, was measured with a self-completed questionnaire. GPs' views on the involvement of nurse specialists were measured in a structured telephone interview.


RESULTS
The patient satisfaction score on the care offered by nurse specialists was 8.4 (scale 1-10), vs. 6.7 for care-as-usual by GPs. Over 85% of patients would recommend nurse specialist care to their best friends and 77% of the GPs considered the role of the nurse specialist to be beneficial, giving it a mean score of 7.2.


CONCLUSIONS
Although the sample was relatively small and the stability of the results only provisionally established, substituting UI care from GP to nurse specialist appears to be welcomed by both patients and GPs. Small changes like giving additional UI-specific information and devoting more attention to UI (which had been given little attention before) would provide a simple instrument to stimulate patients to change their behaviour in the right direction.
Department of Integrated Healtcare, MUMC+ (Maastricht University Medical Centre), Maastricht, The Netherlands. c.albers@maastrichtuniversity.nl
Pytha
P
Albers-Heitner
Ron
R
Winkens
Bary
B
Berghmans
Manuela
M
Joore
Fred
F
Nieman
Johan
J
Severens
Toine
T
Lagro-Janssen
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D058005:General Practitioners / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D009720:Nurse Clinicians; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013041:Specialties, Nursing; D014549:Urinary Incontinence / Q000451:nursing*; D000078329:Workforce