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Practitioner and patient interpersonal skills - Coggle Diagram
Practitioner and patient interpersonal skills
Non-verbal communication (McKinstry and Wang)
They investigated doctor's clothing as a form of non-verbal communication
Sample
475 patients seeing 30 doctors
5 medical centres in Scotland
Procedure
Each patient was shown 8 photographs of a male and female doctor dresses differently labeled from A to H
They were asked like - Which doctor would they feel happiest seeing for the first time (0-5).
Or which doctor looked most like their own doctor
Then they were asked general closed questions
Results
Patients preferred male doctors in formal suit and tie. And female doctors in white lab coat
Older patients and those in higher classes preferred doctors that were more traditionally dressed
Older patients and those in higher social classes objected to male doctors wearing earrings and female doctors wearing jewelry and heavy make-up
More patients objected to female doctors wearing informal clothing like jeans, than male doctors wearing jeans, which shows there is a high pressure for women to conform to a formal stereotype
Evaluation
Strengths
Many patients were from 5 different clinics - representative - high generalisability
Few demand characteristics - Patients said they way a doctor dresses was not important, but ended up still giving discriminatory scores
It followed a standardised procedure since all the doctors were in a similar pose so that they only difference was in what they wore, This reduces extraneous variables and increases the validity and reliability of the results
Weaknesses
No photograph of a woman in formal suit was used, so that may be the reason why results for females in white coats may be higher. So advising females to wear white coats may be wrong
Verbal Communications
McKinlay
They investigated the the role of scientific jargon on the patient-practitioner relationship
Results
Multiparous women have a higher understanding of the words than primiparous women due to greater experience
Only for the word 'purgative' was the women's comprehension lower in both groups
Procedure
They tested 57 words to see which words were used by most doctors. Only 13 words were used by most, but not all doctors
Example words were breech, navel, purgative, etc.
Each word was read to patients, then used in context and then they were asked to say what it meant
The patients responses were recorded verbatim anonymously by using a number to identify the patient
The patient was reassured that this wasn't a test, but simply a way for the researchers to find out if doctors use words that patients can't understand
The patients were scored by blind scorers
One year later, the doctors were asked to indicate the level of understanding they would expect from their patients from A to D
A meant they expect their patients to not understand at all and say so
D meant they expect their patients to understand pretty well
Ley
He wanted to investigate the frequency with which patients forget the verbal advice given to them
Factors
Anxiety level
Medical knowledge
Amount of information
Order of information
Perceived importance of information
Results show that doctors should
Use simple language
State the key information first
Give concrete specific advice (eg: lose 7 pounds rather lose some weight)
Repeat the key points by summarising them at the end of the consultation
Use explicit categorisation which is split into diagnosis, treatment, self-help and prognosis
Interpersonal skills - The ability we have to communicate effectively with others
Evaluation of verbal communication
Strengths
The scorers were working blind so there was no bias and this increases the validity of the results
Patients were protected from psychological harm when they were reassured that this was not a test
A lot of qualitative and quantitative data gained