Issues of therapeutic communication relevant for improving quality of care

Communication issues are extensively considered a topic of high interest for improving the efficacy of the therapeutic act. This article aimed to overview several issues of therapeutic communication relevant for improving quality of care. A number of 15 bibliographic resources on these topics published in peer-reviewed journals between 1975 and 2010, and indexed in PubMed, ProQuest and EBSCO databases were examined, to seek for evidence regarding these data. Results highlight a number of communication problems commonly reported in the literature, such as the lack of physician communicational skills or their deterioration, the persistence of an asymmetric therapeutic communicational model, communication obstacles brought by the disease itself or by several variables pertaining to the patient, including specific demographic and psychological contexts. Equally, literature reports ways of improving therapeutic communication, such as optimizing the clinical interview, better time management techniques or assertiveness. Integration of communication training in the bio-psycho-social model of care and monitoring parameters like adherence and quality of life as tools reflecting also a good therapeutic communication can be valuable future approaches of obtaining better results in this area.