• Dorte Kjeldmand, Inger Holmström, and Urban Rosenqvist.
• Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Section for Health Services Research, University of Uppsala, Sweden. kjeldmand@telia.com
• Patient Educ Couns. 2006 Jul 1; 62 (1): 31-7.

ObjectiveTo describe a new method to determine physicians' self-perceived degree of patient-centredness. A pilot study combining qualitative and quantitative methods.MethodsForty-one general practitioners (GPs) answered a questionnaire consisting of three open-ended questions about their view of the consultation and by choosing among 28 roles of the physician in the physician-patient relationship. Twenty of the GPs had participated in Balint groups while 21 had had no access to Balint group. Patient-centredness is central to Balint groups and consequently Balint group participants would be expected to be patient-centred.ResultsThe answers to the two parts were divided into three groups each, patient-centred, non-patient-centred and intermediary, and analysed statistically. Significantly more Balint participants were patient-centred than the reference group.ConclusionThe instrument describes physicians' self-perceptions of their patient-centredness and can distinguish a group of patient-centred physicians from a group of non-patient-centred physicians.Practice ImplicationsThe instrument can be useful to evaluate educational programmes and detect decline in patient-centredness as early sign of burnout.

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