Canadians' willingness to receive care from physician assistants.
OBJECTIVE
To determine the willingness of Canadians to accept treatment from physician assistants (PAs).


METHODS
Respondents were asked to be surrogate patients or parents under 1 of 3 conditions selected at random. Two scenarios involved injury to themselves, with the third involving injury to their children. The wait time for a physician was assumed to be 4 hours, whereas to explore the sensitivity of patients' preferences for a range of times, PA wait times were 30 minutes, 1 hour, and 2 hours.


METHODS
Vancouver, BC.


METHODS
Two hundred twenty-nine mothers attending a hospital with their children.


METHODS
The main outcome measure was the proportion of individuals in each scenario who were willing to be treated by PAs for at least one of the time trade-off options offered. A secondary outcome was the proportion of individuals who changed their answers when the waiting time to see the PA varied.


RESULTS
Regardless of the scenarios, 99% of participants opted for PAs under the personal circumstances; 96% opted for PAs when the issue involved their children. The choice favouring the PA persisted, albeit at slightly lower proportions, as the difference in wait time between PAs and physicians decreased (85% and 67% for a difference in PA and physician wait time of 3 and 2 hours, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that British Columbians are willing to be treated by PAs under most circumstances, whether this includes themselves or their children. The high level of willingness to be treated by PAs demonstrates public confidence in PA care, and suggests that the use of PAs in Canadian emergency departments or clinics is a viable policy response to decreasing primary care capacity.
Department of Pediatrics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC. qdoan@cw.bc.ca
Quynh
Q
Doan
Roderick S
RS
Hooker
Hubert
H
Wong
Joel
J
Singer
Sam
S
Sheps
Niranjan
N
Kissoon
David
D
Johnson
D000328:Adult; D001955:British Columbia; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D022125:Lacerations / Q000628:therapy; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010823:Physician Assistants; D013180:Sprains and Strains / Q000628:therapy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors