The
direct observation of primary care study: insights from the process of conducting multimethod, transdisciplinary research in community family practice.
The
Direct Observation of Primary Care (DOPC) Study has contributed to the understanding of family practice and has fostered the development of new primary care research methods[1-6] and theoretical perspectives.[7-10] The study's findings have important implications for improving patient care[11-23] and developing policies[9,24-31] that maximize the impact of a generalist patient-centered approach toward the health of individuals, families, and communities.[9] This study has spawned a large portfolio of related inquiry, including an in-depth qualitative study of family practices, a multimethod community practice intervention trial, and a new family practice research center.
This article reports selected descriptive quantitative data on characteristics of the practices, physicians, patients, and patient visits from the
Direct Observation of Primary Care (DOPC) study.
To better understand the context of primary care practice, the
Direct Observation of Primary Care (DOPC) study, was designed to describe the content and context of family practice and to determine the content of patient visits within the competing demands of primary care practice.
