Patient-Centeredness during In-Depth Consultation in the Outpatient Clinic of a Tertiary Hospital in Korea: Paradigm Shift from Disease to Patient

Sohn, Kyoung-Hee; Nam, Sarah; Joo, Jungmin; Kwon, Yong Jin; Yim, Jae-Joon

The baseline characteristics are presented in Table 1 . When patients in the "in-depth 15-minute consultation" group were asked for their reasons for participating, their own willingness was the highest ranked reason at 37.6%, followed by incurableness (26.2%), lack of a diagnosis (18.8%), additional examination (15.1%), and multidisciplinary consultation (2.2%). For the control group, the highest-ranked reason was also patients' willingness (34.3%), followed by incurableness (31.4%), lack of a diagnosis (27.1%), and additional examination (6.4%). One hundred patients (36.5%) requested in-depth consultation in an acute-care community hospital (above 400 beds). This was not statistically different from that observed in the control group (35.0%, 49 patients). When comparing disease severity according to International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) codes, the indepth consultation group exhibited higher severity, with 32.8% of the participants exhibiting severe diseases as compared to 27.8% in the control group. However, this difference was not statistically significant (P = 0.355).