Impact of national health care systems on patient evaluations of general practice in Europe.

Objective: To examine associations between patient evaluations of general practice and characteristics of national health care systems.

Methods: International comparative study in 17 countries, using international patient survey data (n= 25052) and data-bases for health care system characteristics. Dependent variable was patients' evaluation of general practice care. Five independent factors were examined: GP density, physician density, fee for service reimbursement, gatekeeper role, and first-contact role.

Results: None of the associations were statistically significant.

Conclusions: Patients were highly satisfied with general practice in different national health care systems. Descriptive tables on international variations may lead to misleading conclusions.