Doctor-Patient Communication

Information control and the exercise of power in the obstetrical encounter

“…Towards the end of the pregnancy, public clients still want more information than private patients, regardless of the clients' social class. While the frequencies in Table 7 are low, the consistent pattern of results, coupled with some significant associations, 1 It could be suggested that placing women who want no information in the same category as those who want information (and receive it) produces an impure category. If one accepts our conceptualization of power which emphasises the gap between what a respondent would like to know and what she is able to find out, then our approach to measuring the concept appears appropriate.…”

“…A score of 1 was given to respondents who stated they wanted a little discussion but failed to have any. If a respondent stated she had discussed the topic with her obstetrician or if she had no desire to discuss a topic, a score of zero was allocated 1 . In this manner each respondent received four subscale scores based on the gap between what they wanted to know and the discussion that subsequently followed.…”

“…Repeated studies have confirmed that many patients receive little information from their doctors [1,2]. Doctor/patient interaction involves two participants, and an adequate understanding of the interaction process must encompass the patient's apparent unwillingness to ask questions [3,4] as well as the clinicians' reluctance to provide it.…”

Sharing vs. caring—The relative impact of sharing decisions versus managing emotions on patient outcomes

“…In the current study the Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.91. Satisfaction with the consultation was assessed using a 25 item Likert scale adapted from Roter [25] and Korsch et al [26]. Total scores range from 25 to 125.…”

Triadic communication in the primary care paediatric consultation: a review of the literature

“…For example, in a seminal research study on doctor-patient communication, which took place in a paediatric emergency clinic, the researchers stated that the patient in 'paediatrics' refers to the patient's parent. 10 The child was similarly ignored in a major contribution to research on medical interaction, which produced a detailed analysis of 1020 paediatric encounters. The author explained in his report of the study why children did not feature.…”