Appointment Length with Patients in Medical Consultations in Bangladesh: A Hospital-Based Cross-Sectional Study

In medical consultations, the length of the visit has a significant impact on the quality of care. It is significantly associated with a better quality of treatment and better health outcomes. In this study, we analyzed doctors' consultation length with patients and associated factors in Bangladesh. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among the patients (N = 763) who visited the doctors in six district/upazila (sub-district) hospitals in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) area. Linear regression analyses were performed to identify the determining factors associated with the length of doctors' appointments with patients. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS version 24.0. Among the patients, 319 (41.8%) were female and 688 (90.2%) lived in rural/suburban areas. This study revealed that the average length of medical consultations was 9.10 min. Additionally, our findings illustrated that doctors' patient-centered communication behavior (beta = 0.23, p < 0.001) appeared to be the strongest predictor of longer visit length. It was also found that patients' higher education level (beta = 0.10, p = 0.006), having adequate knowledge about the health problem (beta = 0.13, p < 0.001), follow-up visits (beta = 0.13, p < 0.001), and the presence of female doctors (beta = 0.19, p < 0.001) were significantly associated with longer interview times between doctors and patients in primary care settings. Given that doctors' patient-centered communication behavior appears to play the most important role, this study suggests that practicing professionalism in medical consultations, developing effective communication skills and increasing awareness of sociodemographic discrepancies are important to ensure longer appointment lengths and better health outcomes of patients, regardless their sociodemographic and socioeconomic status.