Primary and Nonprimary Care Physicians in Seoul City of South Korea Original Article

Background: It is important to know the current level of primary care performance in order to evaluate and plan for desirable health policy. We tried to compare patient's assessment of primary (family physician, general practitioner, internist, pediatrician, and general surgeon) and non-primary (the other specialties) care physicians. Methods: Study subjects were physicians of primary care clinics in Seoul. The study subject evaluators were Seoul citizens who were selected by a list-assisted random digit dialing sampling method and who had visited their primary care clinic on six or more occasions over a period of more than 6 months as a usual source of care. The modified version of the Korean Primary Care Assessment Tool was used for the evaluation of primary care performance. The data were collected with the aid of a computer-assisted telephone interview system from June 29 to July 22, 2009. Results: The data on 260 individuals were used for analysis. The mean scores of primary and non-primary care physician group were respectively 1.19 and 0.85 in the comprehensiveness domain, 1.00 and 0.83 in the coordination domain, 1.54 and 1.31 in the family/community orientation, and 1.24 and 0.99 as an average of 3 domains above. The scores in the comprehensiveness domain and the average of 3 domains were significantly higher in the primary than in the non-primary care physician group. Conclusion: Primary care physicians showed superior performance compared to non-primary care physicians in comprehensiveness domain and in the average of comprehensiveness, coordination, and family/community orientatio