Primary care dimension mean scores among patients attending outpatient clinics in South West health zone, Malawi, in July and August 2018, shown by hospital and health centre clinics.
| Characteristic | Neno hospitals (SE) | Neno Health centres (SE) | P value | Thyolo hospital (SE) | Thyolo health centres (SE) | P value |
| Sample size | 151 | 152 | 132 | 226 | ||
| First contact—access | 3.1 (0.05) | 3.0 (0.05) | 0.308 | 3.1 (0.07) | 1.8 (0.05) | <0.001** |
| Communication continuity | 3.6 (0.05) | 3.6 (0.05) | 0.816 | 3.5 (0.07) | 3.4 (0.06) | 0.371 |
| Relational continuity | 1.6 (0.06)# | 2.3 (0.08) | <0.001** | 2.3 (0.08)# | 1.8 (0.06) | <0.001** |
| Coordination | 2.5 (0.27) | 3.6 (0.17) | 0.001* | 2.2 (0.27) | 1.7 (0.17) | <0.001** |
| Comprehensiveness | ||||||
| Services available | 3.1 (0.05) | 2.4 (0.05) | <0.001** | 3.1 (0.06) | 1.4 (0.04) | <0.001** |
| Services provided | 2.7 (0.08) | 2.9 (0.07) | 0.085 | 2.5 (0.06) | 2.5 (0.07) | 0.753 |
| Community orientation | 3.3 (0.07) | 3.1 (0.06) | 0.025* | 3.2 (0.08) | 2.6 (0.06) | <0.001** |
| Total PCAT-Mw score | 19.0 (0.18) | 20.9 (0.25) | 0.608 | 19.9 (0.31) | 15.2 (0.20) | <0.001** |
Based on ANOVA Bonferroni post-hoc means test.
*P<0.05, **P<0.01 comparing hospitals and health centres;
#P<0.05 when Neno and Thyolo hospitals were compared.
ANOVA, analysis of variance; PCAT-Mw, Malawian version of the primary care assessment set of tools.