|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Abstract
Objective
Although
most health care professionals im- or explicitly will assume that they
tend to use patient-centered communication strategies, there are reasons
to believe that this might not always be a valid assumption. In
everyday practice, professionals’ own value system is often the dominant
steering guide. This Special Issue aims to bring together ongoing
research and reflections about the quality of health care communication
from the patients’ own perspective. In short: what do patients want?
Methods
This
introduction presents a comprehensive overview of the papers in the
special issue of Patient Education and Counseling within a framework
that describes the collected papers according to the six functions of
medical consultations, taking account of the studies’ applied
methodologies: quantitative versus qualitative.
Results
Two
functions of the medical consultation are strongly represented in the
collected papers on the quality of communication from the patients’
perspective: ‘fostering the relationship’ and ‘information giving’.
There is a remarkable difference between the qualiative and quantitative
studies, showing that if patients are not limited to prestructured
questionnaires but completely free to express themselves, they tend to
focus on ‘fostering the relationship’ with an emphasis on personal
attention, warmth and empathy.
Conclusions
Patients’
needs and preferences for personalized and humane medical care cannot
be overestimated. For the rest, patient diversity is striking, showing
the limited usefulness of general communication guidelines for the other
five functions of the medical consultation. Researchers should be aware
that patients’ views might be different dependent on the applied
methodologies.
0 comments :
Post a Comment
Your comments?
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.