When going to the doctor's office or hospital many things are going through an individual's head. The individual is most likely experiencing some very high anxiety at this point, not knowing what to expect. The anxiety can come from the pain and suffering, financial concerns, or numerous other things that go into the stress of going to the doctors. Most individuals really do not know what to expect when dealing with their illness, because it most likely affects their family as well. Communication practices of multiple professionals in a health care setting can really impact the patient's outcome though. Patients and family members are more likely to feel comfortable with health care providers if they find areas of common interest. (Heery, 2000) This can be as simple as an introduction, making the patient calm down a little and feel that everything is going to be alright when it is all over. In the article Perceptions of Health Care Providers Communication a study is conducted at a large children's hospital, to figure out the extent in which patient-centered communication affects satisfaction with communication and with care itself.
[...] Communication Concepts and Principles The theories that are being explored in the article is if there is a positive relationship between parental perceptions of health care providers use of PCC (e.g., effective introductions, clarity, empathy, immediacy, humor, and listening) and the satisfaction with the communication of the physicians, nurses and the hospital staff. The second goal of the study was to examine the relationship between the patient's health and satisfaction. The theory that was used in the article was the uncertainty reduction theory which offers a predictive model for the relationship between health care providers' use of PCC behaviors and satisfaction. [...]
[...] That would be one place where it would be nice to feel a sense of ease just because someone smiled and listened. The second lesson learned would be that the relationship between the results from the healthy and unhealthy patients seemed almost apparent from the beginning. The parents of the unhealthy patients were not as satisfied overall as the parents of the healthy patients. Of course the parents of the unhealthy patients won't be happy because their own children are very ill and that is probably the only thing that is going though their minds. [...]
[...] Next is the result for health care provider PCC: predicting satisfaction with medical care. Clarity and listening were very strong points for the physicians, while surprisingly; the nurses' only strong points were introductions and listening. The results for patient health and satisfaction with communication and care were not surprising. The parents of the healthier patients had a better review than that of the unhealthy patients, and were more satisfied with communication with their physicians, nurses, health care staff, and the medical care overall. [...]
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