Physicians in Bangladesh spend only less than 50 seconds on each of their patients who seek primary healthcare against 22.5 minutes in Sweden, says a global study, reports UNB.
One hundred and seventy-nine studies were identified from 111 publications covering 28 570 712 consultations in 67 countries under the study.
The average consultation length differed across the world, ranging from 48 seconds in Bangladesh to 22.5 minutes in Sweden, showed the study findings.
"We found that 18 countries representing about 50 per cent of the global population spend 5 minutes or less with their primary care physicians. We also found significant associations between consultation length and healthcare spending per capita, admissions to hospital with ambulatory sensitive conditions such as diabetes, primary care physician density, physician efficiency and physician satisfaction," according to medical journal BMJ.
In conclusion, the study said there are international variations in consultation length, and it is concerning that a large proportion of the global population has only a few minutes with their primary care physicians.
Such a short consultation length is likely to adversely affect patient healthcare and physician workload and stress, said the study.
There were 15 countries with their most recently reported consultation length at less than 5 minutes, 25 countries with a consultation length of 5-9.9 minutes, 11 countries with 10-14.9 minutes, 13 countries with a consultation length of 15-19.9 minutes and 3 countries with a consultation length of 20 minutes.
Three countries had sufficient data points to determine long-term trends: Australia, the UK and the USA. In Australia, the consultation length was relatively stable, in the USA consultation length was increasing (by 12 second a year), and in UK consultation length was increasing (by 4.2 second a year).
This review demonstrates that the consultation length of primary care physicians varies markedly across the world.
The reasons for such striking differences may reflect a number of factors, including issues relating to governance, workforce, access, continuity, comprehensiveness and coordination.
For example, it said, in countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and China, there is no appointment system, and individual primary care physicians may undertake over 90 consultations a day with a considerable amount of time taken up providing repeat prescriptions.
The study was carried out to describe the average primary care physician consultation length in economically developed and low-income/middle-income countries, and to examine the relationship between consultation length and organisational-level economic, and health outcomes.
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