title: The search for person-related information in general practice: a qualitative study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  General practice is person-focused. Contextual information influences the clinical decision-making process in primary care. Currently, person-related information (PeRI) is neither recorded in a systematic way nor coded in the electronic medical record (EMR), and therefore not usable for scientific use.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To search for classes of PeRI influencing the process of care.
  
  
  METHODS
  GPs, from nine countries worldwide, were asked to write down narrative case histories where personal factors played a role in decision-making. In an inductive process, the case histories were consecutively coded according to classes of PeRI. The classes found were deductively applied to the following cases and refined, until saturation was reached. Then, the classes were grouped into code-families and further clustered into domains.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The inductive analysis of 32 case histories resulted in 33 defined PeRI codes, classifying all personal-related information in the cases. The 33 codes were grouped in the following seven mutually exclusive code-families: 'aspects between patient and formal care provider', 'social environment and family', 'functioning/behaviour', 'life history/non-medical experiences', 'personal medical information', 'socio-demographics' and 'work-/employment-related information'. The code-families were clustered into four domains: 'social environment and extended family', 'medicine', 'individual' and 'work and employment'.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  As PeRI is used in the process of decision-making, it should be part of the EMR. The PeRI classes we identified might form the basis of a new contextual classification mainly for research purposes. This might help to create evidence of the person-centredness of general practice.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, diego.schrans@ugent.be.
authors.forename: Diego
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schrans
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Avonts
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Christiaens
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Willems
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Kaat
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: de Smet
authors.affiliation: Department of Primary and Community Care, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands and.
authors.forename: Kees
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: van Boven
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Pauline
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Boeckxstaens
authors.affiliation: Allgemeinmedizinisches Institut, Universitätsklinikum Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kühlein
mesh_terms: D000066491:Clinical Decision-Making; D058006:General Practice; D058005:General Practitioners; D006801:Humans; D018802:Patient-Centered Care; D011320:Primary Health Care; D036301:Qualitative Research
keywords: Classification; electronic health records; general practice; illness behaviour; patient-centred care; quality of health care.