Effective communication between patients and a medical worker is an essential part of the successful treatment of the patient (Onyechi & Babalola, 2020). In addition to the content provided by Christine Julien, there are several points that are essential for effective communication with the patient. First of all, the communication approach toward patients can be classified as the effective development individual approach for each patient. According to a recent study, there are three identified major medical students’ attitude profiles in communication with patients (Schick et al., 2021). The first attitude fosters shared decision-making with patients, while the second approach is based on the patient’s emotions, concerns, and demands when obtaining sufficient information. The third communication profile is using proper conversation techniques for effective structuring of the communication and gathering sufficient information. However, shared decision-making was identified as important in all three communication attitudes. Such classification of communication approaches and attitudes would be useful in developing healthcare workers’ individual communication techniques.
Moreover, the importance of text-based communication with patients is increasing with time, and its relevance is growing along with telecommunication technology development. The study shows that there we no identified major differences in patients’ perception between information technology-mediated communication and face-to-face communication (Mirzaei, & Kashian, 2020). Even though patients mostly preferred face-to-face communication as a more favorable way, there was no significant difference in the effectiveness and success of the application of both communication techniques. In addition, another study of web-based patient-professional communication shows that patient engagement was better in the case of using online technologies (Laukka et al., 2020). Hence, as the potential future of patient-professional communication techniques includes the application of information technology-based or web-based techniques, it should also be taken into account when developing effective communication ways with patients.
References
Laukka, E., Huhtakangas, M., Heponiemi, T., Kujala, S., Kaihlanen, A.-M., Gluschkoff, K., & Kanste, O. (2020). Health Care Professionals’ Experiences of Patient-Professional Communication Over Patient Portals: Systematic Review of Qualitative Studies. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(12), e21623.
Mirzaei, T., & Kashian, N. (2020). Revisiting Effective Communication Between Patients and Physicians: Cross-Sectional Questionnaire Study Comparing Text-Based Electronic Versus Face-to-Face Communication. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(5), e16965.
Onyechi, N. J., & Babalola, Y. O. (2020). Doctor-Patient Communication: Perception of Doctors’ Communication Skills among Patients in Selected Hospitals in Ibadan Nigeria. Journal of Management & Social Sciences, 9(2), 858–872.
Schick, K., Gartmeier, M., & Berberat, P. O. (2021). Senior Medical Student Attitudes Towards Patient Communication and Their Development across the Clinical Elective Year – A Q-Methodology Study. Frontline Learning Research, 9(1), 1–29.