The Development of an Instrument for the Assessment of Doctor-Patient Relationship (Dopraq-16)

Abstract

The objective was to assess the quality of the doctor-patient relationship, following a clinical consultation, through the development of a questionnaire that asks identical questions to doctors and patients. Therefore, a systematic search of the world literature in eight languages to include all available questionnaires measuring aspects of the doctor-patient relationship led to two separate comprehensive sets of questions, which were administered separately to doctor and patient pairs following clinical consultations. Principal component and factor analyses were performed to identify common factors in the doctor-patient relationship. On the basis of results and review of common questions in doctor and patient questionnaires, a questionnaire was constructed, with identical questions for doctors and patients. Concurrent validity was assessed through a 1-10 analogue scale and correlation between doctor and patient responses was studied. As an outcome, sets of 122 and 137 questions for doctors and patients respectively have been identified and administered to 461 doctor-patient pairs following clinical consultation. Principal component analyses revealed 24 factors for doctors and 31 factors for patients, accounting for 73.3 and 70.8% of variance respectively. A series of factor analyses showed that factors vary for patients, doctors and medical specialties. A final analysis including only common questions for doctors and patients led to a two-factor solution, resulting to a 16item questionnaire. Together these findings suggest that the Doctor-Patient Relationship Assessment Questionnaire (DoPRAQ-16) has good psychometric properties, while common questions provide a common language, for measuring the doctor-patient relationship.

Psychometric Validation of the Bangla Version of the Patient-Doctor Relationship Questionnaire

“…The patient-doctor relationship (PDR) is an important concept in health care [ 1 ]. Throughout the history of medicine, patients and doctors have scrutinized and debated their relationship, which is undoubtedly one of the most difficult among interpersonal relations, for a variety of reasons [ 2 ]. It has been linked to patient satisfaction, treatment adherence, and treatment outcome.…”

Doctor Patient Relationship: an Untouched Issue in Bangladesh

“…As the doctor patient relationship is complex interpersonal relationship; scrutinized thoroughly; linked to patients' satisfaction and treatment adherence, ability of coping, relapse rate, quality of life and to some extent, his state of health; it is the time to address the issue appropriately in Bangladesh [1][2][3][4]. It has found that there is substantial works to assess the doctor patient relationship as well as there are plenty of literatures discussing the issue but there is lacking of such literatures extensively in Bangladesh context [1].…”

“…It was also found that patients search out a Primary Care Practitioner who matches their own representation of an ideal and accept their choice in communication [1,3]. It was found that, "the quality of their relation determines not only the patient's and doctor's satisfaction but also the patient's compliance/ adherence, ability of coping, relapse rate, quality of life and, to some extent, his state of health" [4]. Globally substantial efforts have been made to develop instruments & to assess the doctor patient relationship as well as there are plenty of literatures discussing the issue [1].…”

Gaps in doctor patient communication: a community based study

“…8 Other studies have observed that this satisfaction leads to better outcome of treatment. 6,8 An Indian multicentre study among surgical residents shows that most of the residents did not receive any introduction about communication from their seniors. All the residents have had altercations with patients at some point of time and felt that lack of effective communication was the major factor for the same and could have been avoided by proper communication.…”

“…6 Also that better doctor patient communication results in better patient satisfaction. 7 An Indian review article incorporating 17 studies has found out better health outcomes, higher adherence to treatment, higher patient satisfaction and doctor satisfaction, and decreased incidence of malpractice as the impacts of better doctor patient communication.…”