A recent global study claimed that doctors in Pakistan barely give 1.79 minutes (1 minute and 47.4 seconds) to each patient on average, adding that the primary care consultations last less than five minutes for half of the world’s population, found the largest international study on consulting time, published in the British medical journal BMJ Open.

According to the report, Bangladesh is at the bottom of the list with primary care consultation time of just 48 seconds while the Scandinavian country Sweden is at the top with a satisfying score of 22:30 minutes.

The situation in neighboring country, India, is also alarming where mean duration stands at barely two minutes,

The researchers wrote in the journal,

Shorter consultation times have been linked to poorer health outcomes for patients and a heightened risk of burnout for doctors.

To tease out the potential impact on patients and the wider healthcare system, the researchers reviewed the data on consultation length from 178 relevant studies covering 67 countries and more than 28.5 million consultations.

In 15 countries, which represent around half of the world’s population, the appointments lasted less than five minutes. Meanwhile, the appointment durations lasted under 10 minutes in a further 25 countries.

In developed countries, average consultation time seemed to steadily increase: by 12 seconds a year to over 20 minutes in the US; and by just over four seconds a year to 10 minutes in the UK.