Patient satisfaction with point-of-care testing in general practice.

Background: Point-of-care testing is increasingly being used in general practice to assist GPs in their management of patients with chronic disease. However, patient satisfaction and acceptability of point-of-care testing in general practice has not been widely studied.

Aim: To determine if patients are more satisfied with point-of-care testing than with pathology laboratory testing for three chronic conditions.

Design Of Study: As part of a large multicentre, randomised, controlled trial assessing the use of point-of-care testing in Australian general practice, satisfaction was measured for patients having pathology testing performed by point-of-care testing devices or pathology laboratories. Patients in the trial were managed by GPs for diabetes, hyperlipidaemia, and/or anticoagulant therapy.

Method: Patient satisfaction was measured using level of agreement with a variety of statements at the end of the study with a patient satisfaction questionnaire for both the intervention and control groups. Analysis was performed using a mixed model analysis of variance (ANOVA) with allowance for clustering at the practice level following Box-Cox transformations of the data to achieve normality.

Results: Overall, intervention patients reported that they were satisfied with point-of-care testing. In comparison with the control group, the intervention group had a higher level of agreement than control patients with statements relating to their satisfaction with the collection process (P<0.001) and confidence in the process (P<0.001). They also viewed point-of-care testing as strengthening their relationship with their GP (P = 0.010) and motivational in terms of better managing their condition (P<0.001).

Conclusion: The results from this trial support patient satisfaction and acceptability of point-of-care testing in a general practice setting.