The length of a visit to the doctor depends on who you are, and where you are, according to a new survey.

Many people feel that their consultations with the doctor are too short, even though they may be satisfied with their overall care. To discover what factors affect the time a doctor spends with the patient, researchers in Belgium surveyed 3,674 patient visits. These were with 190 family doctors in six European countries.

The average consultation length was 10.7 minutes. Belgium and Switzerland had the longest times, Germany and Spain the shortest. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands were in between. City practices offered consultations that were, on average, 1.5 minutes longer than those in rural areas. Women patients got about a minute longer than men, and doctors spent longer with older patients or where there was a psychological element to the problem bringing the patient to the doctor.

Source

British Medical Journal 31st August 2002