ABSTRACT
The objective of this study was to determine the degree of concordance between physicians and patients at primary health care units with regard to different aspects of medical consultation. The research design was a descriptive survey. The study units were the primary health care units of the Ministry of Health located in the "Gustavo A. Madero" district. 76 patients were interviewed as well as those physicians who gave consultations. A questionnaire was administered to those patients. It included six questions on the following aspects: physical examination, explanation regarding illness and drug prescription, degree of compliance by patients, duration of consultation and an estimation to know if the physician-patient relationship was satisfactory. For these measurements a analogue-visual scale and a semantic differential scale were used. A great variation was found in the correlation between physician and patient. The major degree of concordance was obtained in the way the relationship was perceived by each other (rs = 0.18); the estimation of compliance (rs = 0.10) and the explanation about illness (rs = 0.08). A tendency to disagreement was perceived in the physical examination (rs = 0.18), the duration of consultation (rs = 0.10) and the explanation about drugs (rs = -0.02). A larger degree of agreement was observed when the physician was less than 40 years old, when he had no specialty and when the patients was also less than 40 years old.
