Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2024 Feb 14;24(1):202.
doi: 10.1186/s12913-024-10671-3.

Citizens' perspectives on relocating care: a scoping review

L J Damen  1 , L H D Van Tuyl  2 , J C Korevaar  2   3 , B J Knottnerus  2 , J D De Jong  2   4
Affiliations

Citizens' perspectives on relocating care: a scoping review

L J Damen et al. BMC Health Serv Res. .

Abstract

Background: Healthcare systems around the world are facing large challenges. There are increasing demands and costs while at the same time a diminishing health workforce. Without reform, healthcare systems are unsustainable. Relocating care, for example, from hospitals to sites closer to patients' homes, is expected to make a key contribution to keeping healthcare sustainable. Given the significant impact of this initiative on citizens, we conducted a scoping review to provide insight into the factors that influence citizens' attitudes towards relocating care.

Method: A scoping review was conducted. The search was performed in the following databases: Pubmed, Embase, Cinahl, and Scopus. Articles had to include relocating healthcare and citizens' perspectives on this topic and the articles had to be about a European country with a strong primary care system. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 70 articles remained.

Results: Factors positively influencing citizens' attitudes towards relocating care included: convenience, familiarity, accessibility, patients having more control over their disease, and privacy. Factors influencing negative attitudes included: concerns about the quality of care, familiarity, the lack of physical examination, contact with others, convenience, and privacy. Furthermore, in general, most citizens preferred to relocate care in the studies we found, especially from the hospital to care provided at home.

Conclusion: Several factors influencing the attitude of citizens towards relocating care were found. These factors are very important when determining citizens' preferences for the location of their healthcare. The majority of studies in this review reported that citizens are in favour of relocating care. In general citizens' perspectives on relocating care are very often missing in articles. It was significant that very few studies on relocation from the hospital to the general practitioner were identified.

Keywords: Citizens’ perspectives; Health policy; Primary care; Relocating care.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flowchart of the review process
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development . OECD work on health. Paris: OECD; 2021. pp. 1–44.
    1. Rechel B, Doyle Y, Grundy E, McKee M. How can health systems respond to population ageing? Technical report. Copenhagen: World Health Organization; 2009.
    1. Rudnicka E, Napierała P, Podfigurna A, Męczekalski B, Smolarczyk R, Grymowicz M. The World Health Organization (WHO) approach to healthy ageing. Maturitas. 2020;139:6–11. doi: 10.1016/j.maturitas.2020.05.018. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Liu JX, Goryakin Y, Maeda A, Bruckner T, Scheffler R. Global health workforce labor market projections for 2030. Hum Resour Health. 2017;15(1):11. doi: 10.1186/s12960-017-0187-2. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Boniol M, Kunjumen T, Nair TS, Siyam A, Campbell J, Diallo K. The global health workforce stock and distribution in 2020 and 2030: a threat to equity and ‘universal’ health coverage? BMJ Glob Health. 2022;7(6):e009316. doi: 10.1136/bmjgh-2022-009316. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources