Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Participatory Medicine
Date Submitted: May 1, 2023
Date Accepted: Jan 3, 2024
Getting to know your patient: a content analysis of patients’ answers to a questionnaire for promoting person-centered care
ABSTRACT
Background:
Person-centered care (PCC) encourages patients to actively participate in health care, thus creating care that fits the life of the patient. Therefore health care professionals (HCPs) need to know the patient. As part of broader policy for improving PCC, a digital questionnaire ‘We would like to know you!’ has previously been developed to help HCPs to get to know the patient with help of patient and staff involvement.
Objective:
This study provides insight into the content and aims to give an impression of its potential and usability.
Methods:
A qualitative, retrospective content analysis of patients’ answers was conducted, using NVivo Pro. The questionnaire was used in the outpatient neuro-oncology department of a Dutch academic hospital.
Results:
Out of 374 patients, 78 filled in the questionnaire. A sample of 42 patients was selected. Patients used about 25 words per question and the majority of answers were easily interpretable. When asked about important activities, social activities, sports or maintaining normal life were most frequently mentioned. Patients wrote about fear of the disease, the possible influence on life or about fear of the future in general. Patients wanted HCPs to know about care and communication preferences or shared personal information. They formulated expectations about effective treatment, communication and the care process.
Conclusions:
The questionnaire seems usable, because patients give interpretable answers that take little time to read and HCPs can use to personalize care. Our study shows potential for the questionnaire to help deliver person-centered care.
Citation
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Copyright
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