Doctor–Patient Communication in Primary Health Care: A Mixed-Method Study in Fiji

Abstract

From a clinical perspective, effective and efficient communication is part of a strategy to ensure doctors are providing high-quality care to their patients. Despite the positive impact of effective doctor–patient communication on health outcomes, limited information is available on this in Fiji. This study was carried out to determine the current patients’ perception of doctors’ communication behaviour and identify factors affecting the doctor–patient communication in Fiji. This mixed-method study was conducted in the outpatient setting of three randomly selected health centres in the Suva Subdivision, Fiji. For the quantitative phase, systematic random sampling was used to select the 375 participants who completed the structured questionnaire; of those, 20 participants were selected for the qualitative interview. From the patients’ perception, 45.6% of them perceived doctors’ communication behaviour as good, 53.6% as fair, and 0.8% as poor communication behaviour. Qualitative findings highlight factors such as the attitude of the doctors, their approach, their interaction with the patients, and them providing an explanation as important factors during doctor–patient communication. In Fiji, the majority of patients perceived doctors’ communication behaviour as fair to good and the doctors’ skills were important for effective doctor–patient communication. This study highlighted the importance of doctor–patient communication and suggested that doctors might not be practicing patient-centred care and communication; thus, they need to upgrade their patient-centred communication skills.

First Systematic Review on Health Communication Using the CiteSpace Software in China: Exploring Its Research Hotspots and Frontiers

“…Moreover, the majority of HC definitions have stressed that the ultimate goal of HC is to ameliorate the public health index and encourage healthy behavior, with the behavioral change models widely used in HC research mainly including the health belief model, the social cognitive model, and the theory of reasoned action [ 11 ]. Subsequently, a range of HC studies have been conducted from the perspectives of medicine and public health, social marketing, communication, and pedagogy [ 1 , 12 , 13 , 14 ]. Clearly, HC is a complex research issue that is deeply connected to a variety of different disciplines.…”

“…Clearly, HC is a complex research issue that is deeply connected to a variety of different disciplines. In addition, the analysis of previous studies illustrated that HC research worldwide has focused on several themes, mainly including the doctor–patient relationship [ 12 ], HIV prevention and control [ 15 , 16 ], media interferences [ 13 , 14 ], the effect of HC [ 17 ], the environment of HC [ 18 ], health promotion, health education and health literacy [ 19 , 20 , 21 ], and special topics (e.g., euthanasia [ 22 ] and homosexuality [ 23 ]).…”

Bibliometric and visualization analysis of risk management in the doctor–patient relationship: A systematic quantitative literature review

“…It has been shown in the past that effective and efficient communication is part of a strategy to ensure that physicians provide high-quality care to their patients. [20,21] A systematic review of the impact of doctor–patient communication on health outcomes included 17 randomized controlled trials, 17 controlled studies, and 8 qualitative studies that met the criteria for studies showing that communication (skills) can achieve improved and enhanced effects on treatment-related mood and behavior. [22] A study by Parker et al [23] discovered that effective doctor–patient communication assists physicians in collaborating with patients to achieve improved and safer medication utilization.…”

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“…The academic community has also reconsidered health communication, making it as a recent research hotspot. 8 According to the analysis of previous studies, global health communication research mainly focuses on several topics, including doctor-patient relationship, 9 media interference, 10,11 health promotion, health education, and health literacy. 8,[12][13][14] Among them, the core of health communication is to establish effective communication between communicators and audiences.…”