SynthesisAnnals of family medicine
Rural Patient Experiences of Accessing Care for Chronic Conditions: A Systematic Review and Thematic Synthesis of Qualitative Studies.
Synthesis in Annals of family medicine. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Older adults' experiences of health seeking in rural areas in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review of qualitative studies.Health policy and planning · 2026Pooled it
- Telenursing as an Effective Ally for Improving Patient Outcomes in Diabetes? An Umbrella Review.Nursing open · 2025Pooled it
- Patient Experience of Primary Care in One Small Hospital and One Non-Bedded Clinic in a Mountainous Rural Area of Japan.Journal of general and family medicine · 2026Article
- Residence in a rural setting is associated with lower five-year survival rates in patients that undergo spine surgery for breast cancer metastatic to the spine: A propensity matched analysis.North American Spine Society journal · 2026Article
- The Flow of Healthcare Information in Rural and Remote Settings: A Qualitative Approach.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2026Article
- Sociodemographic factors associated with depressive symptoms and self-care agency capacity in hypertensive older adults from Loja, Ecuador: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- A community-based model for multimodal brain-health screening and Alzheimer's disease and related dementia risk prediction in mid-sized cities and surrounding rural communities: a mixed-methods evaluation.Innovation in aging · 2026Article
- Review
- County health rankings, provider shortages, and the health of incarcerated women with opioid use disorder.The Journal of rural health : official journal of the American Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Care Association · 2026Article
- Barriers to Chronic Disease Healthcare Access in Rural Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Evaluation of Patient Outcomes and Healthcare Accessibility via Telemedicine in Chronic Disease Management: A Qualitative Study.Journal of pharmacy & bioallied sciences · 2025Article
- Core competencies of rural practice for medical students of government-sponsored medical education programs in Taiwan: The students' perspective.Journal of general and family medicine · 2025Article
- Rural opioid stewardship: Lessons learned from one community and the retirement of a pain management clinician.Preventive medicine reports · 2025Article
- Facilitators and barriers to implementing the Diabetes Prevention Program in rural church settings: A qualitative study using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research.The Journal of rural health : official journal of the American Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Care Association · 2025Article
- Article
- Access to hypertension services and health-seeking experiences in rural Coastal Kenya: A qualitative study.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Community engagement contributions to rural health research: Researchers' experience with the Midwest Rural Health Research Community Advisory Board.Journal of clinical and translational science · 2025Article
- Article
- Barriers accessing specialty care in the United States: a patient perspective.BMC health services research · 2024Article
- Increasing digital equity to promote online smoking cessation program engagement among rural adults: a randomized controlled pilot trial.Communications medicine · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeAccess to health care is a long-standing concern for rural patients; however, administrative measures fail to capture the subjective patient experience of accessing health care. The purpose of this review was to synthesize the qualitative literature on patient and caregiver experiences of accessing health care services for chronic disease management among US residents of rural areas.
methodsWe searched Embase, MEDLINE, PsycInfo, CINAHL, and Scopus to identify qualitative studies published during 2010-2019. A thematic synthesis approach was used to analyze findings from included studies.
resultsA total of 62 studies involving 1,354 unique participants were included. The largest share of studies (24.2%) was focused on the experience of patients with cancer, followed by behavioral health (16.1%), HIV and AIDS (14.5%), and diabetes (12.9%). We identified 4 primary analytic themes of barriers and facilitators associated with the experience of accessing health care services for chronic disease management in rural areas: (1) navigating the rural environment, (2) navigating the health care system, (3) financing chronic disease management, and (4) rural life (ie, common elements of a distinct "rural" way of thinking and behaving).
conclusionsIn this comprehensive review, we found that important cultural, structural, and individual factors influenced the rural patient's experience of health care access and use, including barriers and facilitators posed by geographic and built environments, and distinct rural mores. Our findings can inform policies and programs that both facilitate structural aspects of access and include culturally appropriate interventions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.