Medical staff members working in outpatient departments where each patient is seen by the same physician on every visit are more satisfied with their work than are staffs where patients are seen by different physicians on each visit.
This is one of the findings of a study by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, and reported to the Section on Patient Care Research at a meeting of the American Federation for Clinical Research in Atlantic City, NJ, May 3.
The research team of Marvin B. Sussman and Eleanor K. Caplan interviewed 400 patients of 15 long-term care clinics at Cleveland's University Hospitals, and asked the clinics' 136 physicians to complete questionnaires. The return from staff members was 91%.
Purposes of the study were to find factors associated with "general satisfaction" in the outpatient department and to find data for measuring the effects of changes in clinic