To explore healthcare consumers' experiences of healthcare service integration.
This phenomenological study comprised three focus groups of 13 participants who were purposively invited to span three broad generations: young adults, middle-aged adults and seniors. Transcripts of focus group recordings were analysed thematically.
Key themes were that: (i) healthcare consumers manage their own healthcare, (ii) healthcare consumers value open, non-judgmental communication with healthcare providers, and (iii) healthcare consumers want flexibility in healthcare services.
Healthcare consumers integrated their own healthcare, including complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and conventional medicine, by researching practitioners and services and by engaging in service and product rating strategies. They moulded available health services around their needs. Without the support of healthcare providers, healthcare integration, knowledge exchange and risk management are limited. A system of healthcare integration that omits CAM fails to meet community needs, policy aims for greater efficiency, and duty of care to healthcare consumers.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 July 2018.
All research outputs
#18,787,106
of 27,268,765 outputs
Outputs from Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice
#901
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#226,406
of 345,579 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice
#20
of 21 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 27,268,765 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 21st percentile – i.e., 21% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,228 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.8. This one is in the 19th percentile – i.e., 19% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 21 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 1st percentile – i.e., 1% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
