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Background: Preferences and wishes of patients is an important indicator of primary health care provision, although there are differences between national primary care systems. Aim: The aim of this paper is to describe and evaluate the preferences and values of Hungarian primary care (PC) patients before accessing and to analyse their experiences after attending PC services. Methods: In the Hungarian arm of the European QUALICOPC Study, in 2013–2014, information was collected with questionnaires; the Patient Values contained 19 and the Patient Experiences had 41 multiple-choice questions. Findings: The questionnaires were filled by 2149 (840 men, 1309 women) using PC services, aged 49.1 (SD ± 16.7) years, 73% of them having chronic morbidities. Women preferred to be accompanied and rated their own health better. Patients in the lowest educational category and women visited their GPs more often, and they are consulted more frequently by other doctors as well. Men, older and secondary educated people reported more frequently chronic morbidities. Longer opening hours were preferred by patients with higher education. The most preferred expectations were availability and polite communication of doctors, not pressures on consultation time, clear instructions provided during consultations, shared decisions about treatments and options for consultations, the knowledge of the doctors concerning the living conditions, social and cultural backgrounds of patients, updated medical records, short waiting times, options for home visits, wide scope of professional competences and trust in the doctor. Conclusion: Wishes, preferences of patients and fulfilment were similar than described in other participating countries of the study. Although there are room to improve PC services, most of the questioned population were satisfied with the provision.

The application of brain atlas technique is not evident in the post-processing of MR images in patients with intracranial spaceoccupying lesions since brain structures are shifted...

Abstract: Introduction: Numerous beliefs have arisen in relation to the emigration of doctors. First of all, in most cases emigration has been attributed to, almost exclusively, low salaries. There are a number of non-financial issues that could possibly be more easily addressed. Method: In order to get closer to these issues, we sent out a 37-item questionnaire to doctors, who originally graduated from the University of Debrecen. Altogether 82 of them sent back the questionnaire. Results: The mean age at the time of emigration was 32 years. The most popular destination was the United States, however, many colleagues left for the US to do research, as well as clinical practice. Among the European countries, the most popular ones were Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Norway. The five most popular clinical specialties were general practice, internal medicine, anesthesiology/intensive care, laboratory/pathology and surgery. With respect to the planned duration of working abroad, at the time of emigration one-fourth of our colleagues planned very short (

The importance of primary care has already been recognized in the developed countries, where the structure and function of primary care is very heterogeneous. In the QUALICOPC study, the costs, quality and equity of primary care systems will be compared in the 34 participating countries. Representative samples of primary care practices were recruited in Hungary. An evaluation with questionnaire was performed in 222 practices on the work circumstances, conditions, competency and financial initiatives. Ten patients in each practice were also questioned by independent fieldworkers. In this work, the methodology and Hungarian experience are described. The final results of the international evaluation will be analyzed and published later. It is expected that data obtained from the QUALICOPC study may prove to be useful in health service planning and may be shared with policy makers. Orv. Hetil., 2012, 153, 1396–1400.