Balancing good medicine and good communication : doctors’ perspectives on health consultations and how they accommodate to their patients

Abstract

In this study, we explore communication between doctors and patients in health consultations from the doctor’s perspective. Traditionally, health communication research has focused on patient perspectives and interpersonal issues in the health context. We argue that, although patient perspectives are important and there are interpersonal aspects, intergroup issues are more salient, and we need to also consider the doctor’s views on the health consult. Ten doctors from Australia were interviewed and asked to describe their ideal health consultation, their communication behaviors during consultations, and the challenges they often experience during consultations. For reference and comparison, we asked 20 patients the same questions. Leximancer, a text-mining tool, mapped the key concepts for doctors and patients. Communication accommodation theory (CAT) was used to identify the communication strategies of each group. Analyses revealed that unlike patients, doctors report using several communication strategies in their consultations. More notably, accommodating to patients is not an easy task and doctors tend to employ a blended strategies approach when dealing with challenging patients. We discuss the implications of our findings for improving doctor-patient communication and for the advancement of CAT in the health context.