Background Clinical decision-making is often based on evidence of outcome after a specific treatment. Healthcare providers and patients may, however, have different perceptions and expectations of what to achieve from a certain healthcare measure.

Aims To evaluate patients’ expectations, perceptions and health related quality of life (HRQoL) before a care process including coronary angiography for suspected coronary artery disease and to evaluate the fulfilment of these expectations in relation to established patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) 6 months later. Furthermore, an aim was to try to define meaningful patient reported experience measures (PREMs) in this population.

Methods 544 patients planned for coronary angiography completed a newly developed questionnaire to assess expectations and perceptions of treatment, the expectation questionnaire (ExpQ) and two established HRQoL questionnaires together with the established generic Short-Form 36 (SF36) and the disease specific Seattle Angina Questionnaire (SAQ).

Results Patients had before the intervention, in general, high expectations of improvement after investigation and treatment and there was a positive attitude towards life style changes, medication and participation in decision-making regarding their own treatment. Only, 56.4% of the patients, however, reported fulfilment of treatment expectations. Fulfilment of treatment expectations correlated strongly with improvement in HRQoL after the care process.

Conclusions To measure patients ́ expectations and fulfilments of these may offer simple and meaningful outcomes to evaluate a healthcare process from a patient ́s perspective. To approach patients’ expectations may also strengthen patient involvement in the care process with the possibilities of both higher patient satisfaction and medical results of the treatment.