People who keep seeing the same doctor have lower death rates

Authored by newscientist.com and submitted by Wagamaga
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Seeing the same doctor doesn’t just give you the comfort of a familiar face – it might save your life.

Denis Pereira Gray of St Leonard’s Medical Practice and colleagues at the University of Exeter, UK analysed the results of 22 studies from nine countries with different health systems. Eighteen of the studies found that people who saw the same doctor over time had significantly lower death rates.

Because the studies use different ways to measure continuity, it wasn’t possible to get an overall estimate for how big the reduction in mortality is. One recent study looked at 396,838 patients with diabetes in Taiwan. In those with a high level of continuity, the death rate was half as high as those with low continuity.

The benefits of continuity were not limited to family doctors or GPs, but applied to specialist physicians, psychiatrists and surgeons too.

The relationship could be because people with poor health need to see more different doctors, but the studies tried to account for this.

Studies have shown that patients who see the same doctor consistently have higher satisfaction, are more likely to follow medical advice, take up preventative care such as immunisations more often and have significantly fewer unnecessary hospital admissions.

“When a patient sees a doctor they know and get on with, they talk more freely and give that doctor much more relevant information, sometimes quite personal information or anxieties they have, and the doctor can then tailor the advice and management plans much more subtly,” says Pereira Gray.

However, being able to give patients continuity is increasingly challenging because of a shortage of GPs. According to a recent study in England, the chance of seeing the same GP fell by 27 per cent between 2012 and 2017.

The importance of continuity is seriously underappreciated in health systems, says Pereira Gray. “It’s seen in hospitals and general practices as a kind of convenience to give the patient they want to see,” he says. “It’s becoming clearer that this is about the quality of medical practice.”

Journal reference: BMJ Open, DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-021161

Read more: Death rate drops when top heart surgeons are away

drchaos2000 on June 29th, 2018 at 10:22 UTC »

sounds more like a thing abut a steady life in an organized enviroment

Krotanix on June 29th, 2018 at 09:35 UTC »

Do people with private health insurance and people who attend public health have the same "stick to the same doctor" rates?

Along with the other issues mentioned around here, I think this study is kind of meaningless and even misleading for the casual reader.

SoulWager on June 29th, 2018 at 09:12 UTC »

Well yeah, but is it caused by a doctor that knows you and your history better, or is it caused by people switching doctors more frequently if they don't have a good one?