Visits to the general practitioner last less than 5 minutes for half of the world's population and range from as little as 48 seconds in Bangladesh to over 22 minutes in Sweden. This was revealed by a study conducted on global data (67 countries, but Italy is not among them) and published in the journal BMJ Open.
Led by Greg Irving of the University of Cambridge, the study is important because the length of visits to the general practitioner is considered an indicator of the quality of health care. Visits with reduced times have been associated with worse health outcomes for patients and risk of burnout for physicians. As demand for primary care increases globally, length of visits is becoming a pressing issue.
To study the potential impact of length of doctor's visits on patients and the healthcare system, the British experts used data from 178 studies spanning 67 countries and totaling over 28.5 million visits. Many discrepancies between countries have emerged: for half of the world's population (inhabitants in 15 countries) visits last less than 5 minutes; a minimum amount of time which certainly cannot allow much more to be done than the prescription of medicines and the referral of the patient to specialized care.
Here is the European picture, provided by Irving: it goes from a minimum of Austria (5 minutes) to go up – for example Germany 7.6 minutes, Great Britain (9.22), Denmark (10), Holland (10.2 ), Spain (10.4), Malta (14), Luxembourg (15), France (16), Switzerland (17), Finland (17.9), Bulgaria (20), Sweden (22.5).
Related news: International variations in primary care physician consultation time: a systematic review of 67 countries
In Italy 9 minutes to visit a patient but in Genoa the statistics do not hold up
