The Learners' Perceptions Survey—Primary Care: Assessing Resident Perceptions of Internal Medicine Continuity Clinics and Patient-Centered Care

BACKGROUND: In 2010, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) implemented a national patient-centered care initiative that organized primary care into interdisciplinary teams of health care professionals to provide patient-centered, continuous, and coordinated care. OBJECTIVE: We assessed the discriminate validity of the Learners' Perceptions Survey-Primary Care (LPS-PC), a tool designed to measure residents' perceptions about their primary and patient-centered care experiences. METHODS: Between October 2010 and June 2011, the LPS-PC was administered to Loma Linda University Medical Center internal medicine residents assigned to continuity clinics at the VA Loma Linda Healthcare System (VALLHCS), a university setting, or the county hospital. Adjusted differences in satisfaction ratings across settings and over domains (patient- and family-centered care, faculty and preceptors, learning, clinical, work and physical environments, and personal experience) were computed using a generalized linear model. RESULTS: Our response rate was 86% (77 of 90). Residents were more satisfied with patient- and family-centered care at the VALLHCS than at either the university or county (P < .001). However, faculty and preceptors (odds ratio [OR] = 1.53), physical (OR = 1.29), and learning (OR = 1.28) environments had more impact on overall resident satisfaction than patient- and family-centered care (OR = 1.08). CONCLUSIONS: The LPS-PC demonstrated discriminate validity to assess residents' perceptions of their patient-centered clinical training experience across outpatient primary care settings at an internal medicine residency program. The largest difference in scores was the patient- and family-centered care domain, in which residents rated the VALLHCS much higher than the university or county sites.