Sensitive patient-doctor communications relating to the breasts and prostate

This study was carried out at two primary health care centers in separate counties in central Sweden. Data derive from recordings of consultations of 42 patients and their general practitioners. The patients and the doctors were interviewed separately after each consultation. The analysis is based on the audio-recordings as well as on verbatim transcripts of the consultations. It focuses on communications about the topics relating to the breasts and the prostate and how these topics are dealt with during the consultations. These topics were brought up in seven (29.2%) of the 24 consultations with female patients and four (22.2%) of the 18 consultations with male patients. A common pattern of the outcome as regards information was that the patient was given neither the tool, i.e., knowledge about bodily functions, nor methods for detecting an abnormality. The patients indirectly evinced ignorance with regard to the body, examinations, and diseases, and did not ask any direct questions that required answers.