title: Patients' priorities regarding outpatient physiotherapy care: a qualitative and quantitative study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Little knowledge is available on the attributes pertaining to physiotherapy care that patients consider most important.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To establish patients' priorities with regard to outpatient physiotherapy care and to determine the association between gender, age, level of education, perceived health, frequency of visiting a physiotherapist (PT), and patients' priorities. DESIGN, PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: 8 Focus group discussions that were conducted with 53 patients were used to generate aspects of care that were considered important for patients. Subsequently, a self-administered questionnaire, consisting of the aspects of care that were revealed in the focus group discussions, was handed out to 20 consecutively visiting patients by 22 PTs who were working in an outpatient private practice. The patients were asked to rate the importance of each aspect.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The focus group discussions generated 48 aspects of care that were included in the questionnaire; 358 (81%) patients returned the questionnaire. All the proposed aspects were perceived as being important. The most important aspect was that "the PT is expert in his professional field." Patients who were older, received a lower level of education, were less healthy, and attended more frequently, indicated more aspects as important; however, the different subgroups ranked the priorities, to a large extent, in the same manner.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings of the survey can be used to make PTs more responsive to the expectations of patients, to educate patients about the role of physiotherapy care, and to develop instruments for measuring patients' experience and satisfaction with physiotherapy care.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care, Ghent University, Campus Heymans - 6K3, De Pintelaan 185, 9000 Gent, Belgium. Wim.Peersman@ugent.be
authors.forename: Wim
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Peersman
authors.forename: Toni
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Rooms
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bracke
authors.forename: Hilde
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Van Waelvelde
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: De Maeseneer
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cambier
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009140:Musculoskeletal Diseases / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires