Research On Medical Student's Doctor-patient Communication And Its Influencing Factors

Objective:To investigate the current performance of doctor-patient communication of medical students and explore the relationship between individual's social-psychological factors with it,in order to provide the evidences for intervention on medical students' communication behaviors.Methods:Scale of medical student's doctor-patient communication behavior and Shyness Scale,Texas Social Behavior Inventory,Revised Neuroticism Extraversion Openness Personality Inventory(NEO-PI-R) were tested in 152 medical students either from 3^rd to 5^th years of their college.T-test,One-way ANOVA,factor analysis,correlate analyze and linear regression were used in statistic with SPSS to analyze the relationships between medical students' doctor-patient communication behavior with student general information,shyness,social self-esteem, personal characteristics.Results:(1) There was significant difference in gender in the subscale of information-giving(t=2.209,P=.029);(2)Medical students rated themselves most highly in Treated the patients with the same manners(32.5%),Get their reasons for coming to hospital(23.6%) and Use open questions when asked them(25.7%).(3)Medical students also reported that they didn't have the chance to discuss the treatment plan with the patient(23.6%);(4) Communication behaviors were negatively related with individual shyness(r=-.377,P=.000) and positively related with social self-esteem(r=.452,P=.000),extraversion (r=.344,P=.000) and conscientiousness(r=.286,P=.000);(5) Social self-esteem,feeling,tender-mindedness and dutifulness have successfully entered the linear regression model of communication behaviors.Conclusions:(1) Medical students have already form the ideas of doctor-patient communication and some have begun this kind of communication actively,(2) Female medical students are almost as good as male when communicates with patients,(3) Fewer communication is undergoing between shy medical students with patients or these individuals have negative evaluation of the outcomes of their communication behaviors,(4) Individuals with higher social self-esteem or Extraversion score show more satisfaction when communicated with patients,(5) Medical students with higher Conscientiousness score do better in this doctor-patient relationship.