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E-Patient Counseling Trial (E-PACO): Computer Based Education versus Nurse Counseling for Patients to Prepare for Colonoscopy
Published on: August 1, 2019
The impact of patient and physician computer mediated communication skill training on reported communication and
Debra L Roter1, Randy Wexler, Phyllis Naragon
1Department of Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA. droter@jhsph.edu
Objective:
The objective was to evaluate parallel patient and physician computer-mediated communication skill training on participants' report of skill use and patient satisfaction.
Methods:
Separate patient and clinician web-tools comprised of over 500, 10-s video clips demonstrating patient-centered skills in various ways. Four clinician members of the American Academy of Family Physicians National Research Network participated by enrolling 194 patients into a randomized patient trial and 29 physicians into a non-randomized clinician trial of respective interventions. All participants completed baseline and follow-up self-report measures of visit communication and satisfaction.
Results:
Intervention patients reported using more skills than controls in five of six skill areas, including identification of problems/concerns, information exchange, treatment adherence, shared decision-making and interpersonal rapport (all p<.05); post intervention, physicians reported using more skills in the same 5 areas (all p<.01). Intervention group patients reported higher levels of satisfaction than controls in five of six domains (all p<.05).
Conclusion:
Communication skill training delivered in a computer mediated format had a positive and parallel impact on both patient and clinician reported use of patient-centered communication and in patient satisfaction.
Practice Implications:
Computer-mediated interventions are cost and time effective thereby increasing patient and clinician willingness to undertake training.
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