South Asian patients have worse experiences of GP interactions, study suggests

Communication between doctors and South Asian patients is poor, according to national GP surveys, but a question has been raised about whether this reflects genuinely worse experiences or differences in responding to questionnaires. Now, a new study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge has shown that it is in fact the former - South Asian patients do experience poorer communication with their GP than the White British majority. Given that Pakistani adults tend to have a more positive take on the same vignettes viewed by their White British counterparts, we can only conclude that the low scores they give in national surveys do genuinely reflect worse care - Jenni Burt Patients? evaluations of doctors? interpersonal skills are used to assess quality of care. In both the UK and the US, certain minority ethnic groups report lower patient experience scores compared to the majority population. For example, the English General Practice Patient Survey found that South Asian groups report particularly low scores compared to the White British majority, with Bangladeshi and Pakistani groups providing the lowest scores. Several potential explanations have been proposed for these lower ratings. These mainly relate to whether South Asian patients receive lower quality care, or whether they receive similar care, but rate this more negatively.