Different perspectives on communication quality and emotional functioning during routine oncology consultations

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Medical Communication
• Patient-Physician Relationship

Background:

• Effective communication is crucial in oncology consultations.
• Discrepancies in perception between patients, physicians, and observers can impact care quality.
• Understanding these differing perspectives is key to improving patient-physician interactions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess communication quality in routine oncology consultations from patient, physician, and observer viewpoints.
• To evaluate the agreement on the discussion of emotional functioning content among these three perspectives.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 69 oncology consultations.
• Utilized patient and physician questionnaires for perceived communication quality and emotional functioning discussion.
• Employed content analysis of audio recordings for observer perspective.
• Statistical comparison using linear mixed models to analyze agreement between perspectives.

Main Results:

• Patients' ratings of communication quality significantly differed from physician and observer ratings.
• Physician and observer scores for communication quality showed no significant difference.
• Physicians reported discussing emotional functioning more frequently than patients or observers perceived.

Conclusions:

• Significant disparities exist in how patients, physicians, and observers perceive communication quality in oncology settings.
• Perceptions of whether emotional functioning was discussed also varied considerably among patients, physicians, and observers.
• Further research is needed to explore the implications of these differing perspectives and develop methods for enhancing shared understanding and communication evaluation in oncology.