Docs Who Are Good Talkers Have Happier Patients
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Physicians with poor communications skills are more apt than their peers with good communication skills to have patients who complain, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week.
In the study, young doctors who scored poorly on a communication skills test taken early in their career were more likely than their peers with higher scores to be reported to medical regulatory authorities during their career.
Dr. Robyn Tamblyn, at McGill University in Montreal, and colleagues collected data on more than 3,400 doctors who took the Medical Council of Canada clinical skills test, which includes an assessment of communication skills, between 1993 and 1996. Data were collected until 2005, after 2 to 12 years of practice.
A total of 696 valid complaints were filed against 17 percent of the physicians. More than 80 percent of the complaints were for "attitude/communication and quality of care problems." The "quality of care" category referred to communication problems in management and inappropriate treatment or follow-up.
The rate of patient complaints was much higher for doctors with poor communication skills relative to those with good communication skills, Tamblyn and colleagues report.
Only the communication component of the three-part clinical skills examination was significantly associated with patient complaints, the investigators report.
Patients described physicians with poor communication scores as "condescending," "offensive" or "judgmental," or they ignored patient responses.
"These are not nuanced communication behaviors," comment Dr. Gregory Makoul and Dr. Raymond H. Curry, at the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, in a related editorial.
The study "underscores the importance of addressing professional skills and perspectives early and often during medical education," they note, and is "an important step toward establishing the value of efforts to improve both medical education and patient care."
SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, September 5, 2007
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Physicians with poor communications skills are more apt than their peers with good communication skills to have patients who complain, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association this week.
In the study, young doctors who scored poorly on a communication skills test taken early in their career were more likely than their peers with higher scores to be reported to medical regulatory authorities during their career.
Dr. Robyn Tamblyn, at McGill University in Montreal, and colleagues collected data on more than 3,400 doctors who took the Medical Council of Canada clinical skills test, which includes an assessment of communication skills, between 1993 and 1996. Data were collected until 2005, after 2 to 12 years of practice.
A total of 696 valid complaints were filed against 17 percent of the physicians. More than 80 percent of the complaints were for "attitude/communication and quality of care problems." The "quality of care" category referred to communication problems in management and inappropriate treatment or follow-up.
The rate of patient complaints was much higher for doctors with poor communication skills relative to those with good communication skills, Tamblyn and colleagues report.
Only the communication component of the three-part clinical skills examination was significantly associated with patient complaints, the investigators report.
Patients described physicians with poor communication scores as "condescending," "offensive" or "judgmental," or they ignored patient responses.
"These are not nuanced communication behaviors," comment Dr. Gregory Makoul and Dr. Raymond H. Curry, at the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, in a related editorial.
The study "underscores the importance of addressing professional skills and perspectives early and often during medical education," they note, and is "an important step toward establishing the value of efforts to improve both medical education and patient care."
SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, September 5, 2007
