Perceptions around concordance - focus groups and semi-structured interviews conducted with consumers, pharmacists and general practitioners

Background Achieving concordance by identifying beliefs about illness, treatment and medicine-taking should impact positively on behaviour and consumer satisfaction with respect to treatment, and health outcomes may be improved. Objective To explore, in the Australian context, beliefs and expectations of general practitioners (GPs), consumers and pharmacists in relation to concordance to allow further exploration of the implementation of principles of concordance in Australia. Design Qualitative analysis of focus group and semi-structured interview data. Setting and participants Focus groups were held with seven consumers and nine pharmacists and, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were held with 10 GPs between February and May 2003, in Brisbane (Australia). Results This explorative study identified a variety of issues. Consumers expressed the need for more input from health professionals being given more information on their treatments and conditions, more time spent in discussion, and establishing a system where harmonious relationships between health professionals could take place, which would result in a more consumer-friendly health care system. The main issues voiced by the pharmacists were about the idea of organizing the health care system in a way that would accommodate more quality information sharing between all partners. GPs' issues included better and unlimited information-sharing, having more time to promote quality in health care and receiving remuneration for increased verbal contact with other health care-professionals. Suggestions were made about ways to achieve concordance by improved information-sharing and shared decision-making. Conclusion The data from this study will lead to the development of models to explore and attempt to incorporate principles of concordance in Australian pharmacy and medical practice.