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Editorial
Continuity of care: good for patients, good for prescribing
  1. Julian Treadwell
  1. Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Julian Treadwell, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX2 6GG, UK; julian.treadwell{at}phc.ox.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1136/dtb.2023.000033

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    Evidence that continuity of care improves important health outcomes has been building over the last three decades, strengthening in quality and reliability in the last few years. Continuity of care can be defined as repeated contact between an individual patient and a doctor. Individual studies have shown a positive relationship between continuity and outcomes such as patient satisfaction, medicines adherence and hospital use, and an important systematic review published in 2018 described its effect on overall mortality.1

    The systematic review included 22 studies exploring the relationship between continuity of care and mortality.1 These had been conducted in both primary and secondary care in a range of countries and used a variety of measures of continuity. The heterogeneity of the studies prevented meta-analysis, but the authors found that 18 out of these 22 studies showed reduced mortality in study populations …

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    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None declared. Refer to the online supplementary files to view the ICMJE form(s).

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.