Physician and Patient Perceptions of the Physician Explanations in Medical Encounters

Abstract

Although, in actual practice, physicians have to subjectively judge the level of the explanation that they provide, little is known about this judgment. Therefore, making use of 630 physician-patient pairs in Japan, we investigated the association between patient and physician evaluations of physician explanations of medical test results and diagnoses. We found that the physician's judgment does not always agree with that of the patient, with regard to the level of explanation necessary. In addition, we first identified factors relating to the accuracy of physician judgments with regard to their explanations to patients. More studies will be necessary to verify the present findings.

In-office Discussions of Migraine: Results from the American Migraine Communication Study

“…Previous studies 25 have demonstrated that when HCPs received information about headache-related impairment in addition to symptoms, frequency, and pain intensity, their appreciation of the severity of the patient's migraines increased, as did the likelihood that they would prescribe migraine-specific medication with more aggressive follow-up. While the degree of misalignment found in this study may seem high, similar findings have been seen in other therapeutic areas [45][46][47] suggesting that narrowly focused questions …”

Acupuncture practitioner–patient communication in Japan

“…Hagihara proposed a method for the objective evaluation of physician-patient communications (Hagihara et al 2005(Hagihara et al , 2006a(Hagihara et al , 2006b) that avoids the above-mentioned problems of RIAS and also takes into consideration the observation that the patient's subjective evaluation of the conversation during a consultation, and that of the physician's explanation, have stronger effects than the amount of objective explanation offered in determining subsequent patient behavior (Northouse and Northouse 1992). In concrete terms, this method evaluates a physician-patient pair using questionnaire forms containing identical questions regarding physician-patient communication, and assesses the discordance between the physician's and the patient's perceptions regarding the extent of the physician's explanation ( Figure 1).…”

“…When the practitioner score is equal to the patient score ("Concordance"), the interaction is considered a good one (Figure 1). A survey that examined pairs of physicians in Fukuoka Prefecture and their patients (Hagihara et al 2005(Hagihara et al , 2006a(Hagihara et al , 2006b showed Acupuncture practitioner-patient communication that "Discordance, Physician Better" was associated with a signifi cantly lower patient satisfaction regarding therapy than "Concordance" or "Discordance, Patient Better," and that a significantly larger proportion of patients visited multiple medical institutions for the same medical problem. Based on these results, they claimed that the dichotomy into "Discordance, Physician Better" and other cases ("Concordance" or "Discordance, Patient Better") was a useful method for evaluating professional-patient communication.…”

Aconselhamento informativo para adultos e idosos usuários de aparelho de amplificação sonora individual: avaliação da eficácia de um material online

“…Além disto, não houve correlação entre as percepções destes indivíduos quanto às explicações referentes ao tratamentopor exemplo, efeitos do tratamento, efeitos colaterais, riscos, tratamentos alternativos. (HAGIHARA et al, 2006 Os profissionais tendem a usar a terminologia técnica porque ela é precisa e familiar. Além disto, nem sempre existe uma palavra não técnica que seja equivalente (HOUTS et al, 2006).…”