Understanding the Patient-Physician Interaction: Potential for Reducing Health Disparities

Racial differences in health and health care persist. These differences can be linked, in part, to physician-patient communication. This study examined the effect of race concordance and communication comfort on the patient's level of general satisfaction and their intent to adhere to physician...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of applied social science 2008-09, Vol.2 (2), p.54-65
Main Authors: Gupta, Nidhi, Carr, Nicole T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adherence
AIDS
APPLICATION-ORIENTED RESEARCH
Client relationships
Clinical outcomes
Comfort
Communication
Consciousness
Constant coefficients
Health disparities
Health outcomes
Health problems
Health services
Health status
Patient care
Patient communication
Patient satisfaction
Patients
Physician patient relationships
Physicians
Race
Racial differences
Recommendations
Regression coefficients
Sick role
Social interaction
Treatment compliance
Variable coefficients
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Summary:Racial differences in health and health care persist. These differences can be linked, in part, to physician-patient communication. This study examined the effect of race concordance and communication comfort on the patient's level of general satisfaction and their intent to adhere to physician instructions. Results indicate that patient satisfaction and likelihood of adherence are related to communication comfort. Additionally, patients seeing a physician of their own race are more likely to adhere to instructions than those seeing a physician of a different race, although the effect of race-concordance is not as strong as communication comfort. Interestingly, race-concordance is not related to patient satisfaction. We conclude that both communication comfort and race-concordance play major roles in the patient-physician relationship. Given that communication comfort appears to play a more important role than race concordance, our findings suggest that increasing awareness of racial differences and effective communication can increase patient satisfaction and adherence intent. Increasing adherence with treatment regimes should increase positive health outcomes.
ISSN:1936-7244
1937-0245
DOI:10.1177/193672440800200206