What Patients Say About Their Doctors Online: a Qualitative Content Analysis

Overview

Journal J Gen Intern Med

Publisher Springer

Specialty General Medicine

Date 2012 Jan 5

PMID 22215270

Citations 89

Authors

Andrea Lopez

Alissa Detz

Neda Ratanawongsa

Urmimala Sarkar

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Doctor rating websites are a burgeoning trend, yet little is known about their content.

Objective: To explore the content of Internet reviews about primary care physicians.

Design: Qualitative content analysis of 712 online reviews from two rating websites. We purposively sampled reviews of 445 primary care doctors (internists and family practitioners) from four geographically dispersed U.S. urban locations. We report the major themes, and because this is a large sample, the frequencies of domains within our coding scheme.

Results: Most reviews (63%) were positive, recommending the physician. We found a major distinction between global reviews, "Dr. B is a great doctor." vs. specific descriptions which included interpersonal manner, "She always listens to what I have to say and answers all my questions."; technical competence "No matter who she has recommended re: MD specialists, this MD has done everything right."; and/or systems issues such as appointment and telephone access. Among specific reviews, interpersonal manner "Dr. A is so compassionate." and technical competence "He is knowledgeable, will research your case before giving you advice." comments tended to be more positive (69% and 80%, respectively), whereas systems-issues comments "Staff is so-so, less professional than should be…" were more mixed (60% positive, 40% negative).

Conclusions: The majority of Internet reviews of primary care physicians are positive in nature. Our findings reaffirm that the care encounter extends beyond the patient-physician dyad; staff, access, and convenience all affect patient's reviews of physicians. In addition, negative interpersonal reviews underscore the importance of well-perceived bedside manner for a successful patient-physician interaction.

Citing Articles

Physician Gender and Patient Perceptions of Interpersonal and Technical Skills in Online Reviews.

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Artificial intelligence after the bedside: co-design of AI-based clinical informatics workflows to routinely analyse patient-reported experience measures in hospitals.

Canfell O, Chan W, Pole J, Engstrom T, Saul T, Daly J BMJ Health Care Inform. 2024; 31(1).

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Categorizing Extremely Positive Five-Star Online Reviews for Orthopedic Foot and Ankle Surgeons: A Retrospective Study.

Anastasio A, Baumann A, Kiwinda L, Ruderman L, Hitchman K, Hanselman A Cureus. 2024; 16(10):e71932.

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Reviewing the Raters: A Study of Orthopedic Oncology Rating Outcomes During COVID-19.

Panchbhavi M, Yu A, Chen J, Hagedorn J, Janney C, Jupiter D Cureus. 2024; 16(10):e70829.

PMID: 39493175 PMC: 11531921. DOI: 10.7759/cureus.70829.

Classification of Patients' Judgments of Their Physicians in Web-Based Written Reviews Using Natural Language Processing: Algorithm Development and Validation.

Madanay F, Tu K, Campagna A, Davis J, Doerstling S, Chen F J Med Internet Res. 2024; 26:e50236.

PMID: 39088259 PMC: 11327625. DOI: 10.2196/50236.

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