Perceptions and attitudes to client centred care in chronic disease: an exploratory enquiry

This report has been completed for the Client Centred Care Project Steering Committee. The research is based on two pre-course and two post-course questionnaires to participants attending the Client Centred Care Project pilot courses, at Southern NSW Local Health District in Bega and Murrumbidgee Local Health District in Wagga Wagga; and telephone interviews with volunteering participants. The 'Assessment of Primary Care Resources and Supports for Chronic Disease Self Management (PCRS) was used as the quantitative research instrument. Statistically significant differences were found between overall pre-test and post-test PCRS ratings. The PCRS has two categories, Patient Support and Organisational Support. A two-tailed t-test of differences between means showed a statistically significant difference between the mean scores for the total eight Patient Support items and the eight Organisational Support items, with participants rating Organisational Support as 'worse' than Patient Support. Two variables alone were responsible for Organisational Support's lower mean: ongoing quality improvement (Organisational Support item 3) and patient input (Organisational Support item 5). Analysis of variance showed no significant differences between Bega and Wagga Wagga sub-samples for either category, or for pre-test or post-test differences.