Descriptive analyses
The eight participating physicians completed 800 questionnaires over 2 weeks in July 1995. In the total sample (N=800), 60.4% of patients were female, and 19.4% were younger than 20 years, 38% between 21 and 40, 18.3% between 41 and 60, and 24.3% older than 61. Patients had acute (56.7%) and chronic (43.3%) problems.
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Approximately one third (30.4%) of patients were accompanied during their visits. Children and patients older than 75 were most frequently accompanied (Table 1); the proportions in these two groups were significantly larger than for all other age groups X^2 = 274.53, df/=5, P<.001). Accompanied patients were similarly distributed by sex, but were more likely to have acute problems than unaccompanied patients (Table 2). Children’s presenting problems were rarely chronic (23.2%); seniors’ concerns were primarily chronic (64.4%).

Table 1. Proportion of accompanied patients in various age groups

*Data on age or whether there was an accompanying person were missing for 17 patients.

Table 2. Sex and presenting problems of accompanied and unaccompanied patients

NS—not significant
*Data were missing for 26 subjects.
*Data were missing for 31 subjects.
V- 12.57, df= 1,P<.001.

Most patients (74.1%) were accompanied by one person, who most often was female (72.6%) and between the ages of 21 and 40 years (53.6%). The accompanying person was usually a parent (46.0%) or spouse (24.3%). Rarely did the accompanying person have a booked appointment (n = 25, 9.8%). Accompanying people’s roles were most frequently described by physicians as advocates for patients (n = 235, 68.5%). If the accompanying person was a child, however, the role was most often identified as a silent observer (n=36, 68.6%). Physicians documented accompanying people’s behaviour during interactions as primarily supportive to both the patient (82.8%) and the doctor (69.8%). The influence of the main accompanying person on the patient-doctor encounter was most often described by physicians as positive (95.1%).

Exploratory analyses: dyad configurations
Six types of patient-accompanying person dyads were identified (Table 3): child accompanied by a parent, patient accompanied by spouse, parent accompanied by child (ren), patient (child or adult) accompanied by sibling, senior accompanied by adult child, and adult child accompanied by parent. female pink viagra

Table 3. Numbers and proportions of the six dyads

The most common dyad was child accompanied by parent (45.8%); children of both sexes younger than 20 years were frequently accompanied by a parent, most often the mother (94.4%). The second most common dyad was adult patient accompanied by partner (24.4%). Two age groups predominated: 21 to 40 years (36.2%) and older than 61 years (37.9%). Women (59.6%) were more likely to be accompanied by their spouses. The third common dyad was patient accompanied by child younger than 20 years. Women (91.4%) between the ages of 21 and 40 (91.5%) were more often accompanied by children younger than 20. While most of these patients (76.5%) were accom¬panied by one child, 11.8% were accompanied by three or more children. The fourth common dyad involved patients accompanied by siblings. In this group (a small group, 10.5% of all patient encounters involving accompanying people), 40% were elderly patients most often accompanied by a sister.
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Results of X2 analyses revealed a pattern of relationships between the four most common dyad configurations and the nature of presenting problems, role of accompanying people, and influence of accompanying people’s presence on visits. Both the child accompanied by parent dyad and the parent accompanied by child dyad were associated primarily with acute presenting problems (78.8% and 82.9%, respectively). Patients in the remaining two dyads (adult accompanied by spouse and patient accompanied by sibling) were almost evenly split between acute and chronic presenting problems (Table 4).

Table 4. Proportion of acute and chronic problems in the four most common dyads

X^2 = 24.1,df=3,P<.001.
*Data for presenting problem were missing for five child accompanied by parent dyads and for one parent accompanied by child dyad.

In the child accompanied by parent and patient accompanied by sibling dyads, the role of the accompanying person was identified as primarily that of an advocate (89.0% and 88.0%, respectively); spouses attending their partners’ visits did so primarily as advocates (58.9%) and observers (33.9%). In the par ent accompanied by child dyad, the role of the child was most often identified as that of observer (68.6%) or unbooked patient (25.7%) (Table 5).
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Table 5. Role of the accompanying person in the four most common dyads

X^2 = 97.6,df=6,P<.001.
*Data for role of accompanying person were missing for two adult accompanied by spouse dyads and one parent accompanied by child dyad

The influence of accompanying people on patient encounters was identified as largely positive for all dyad configurations except for the parent accompanied by child dyad. In only 27.8% of these encounters was the influence of the accompanying child found to be positive; more often children were found to have a neutral (58.3%) and sometimes even negative influence (13.9%) on the visit (Table 6). buy imitrex

Table 6. Influence of the main accompanying person on the consultation for the four most common dyads

X^2 = 82.0,df=6,P<.001.
*Data for influence on consultation were missing for two child accompanied by parent dyads and two adult accompanied by spouse dyads.