Patient comfort discussing sensitive behavioral health topics

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Health
• Primary Care
• Patient Comfort

Background:

• Routine depression screening is common in primary care.
• Screening for other behavioral health issues is expanding.
• Patient comfort with sensitive questions impacts screening effectiveness.

Purpose of the Study:

• Assess patient comfort discussing various behavioral health topics.
• Compare comfort levels across different behavioral health issues.
• Identify reasons for patient discomfort with sensitive topics.

Main Methods:

• A survey of 378 U.S. adults (18+) was conducted via Amazon Mechanical Turk.
• Assessed comfort discussing demographics, physical health, behavioral health, oral health, and living conditions.
• Compared comfort discussing behavioral health topics to depression symptoms and explored reasons for discomfort.

Main Results:

• Significant differences in comfort levels discussing behavioral health issues were found (P < .001).
• Participants were more comfortable discussing smoking cessation than trauma, intimate partner violence (IPV), or gun ownership.
• Privacy and perceived irrelevance were primary reasons for discomfort.

Conclusions:

• Accurate assessment of patient behavioral health is crucial for care.
• Patient discomfort with topics like trauma, IPV, and gun ownership stems from privacy and relevance concerns.
• Improving patient comfort requires provider training, privacy, and community education on health impacts.