The Evaluation of Physicians’ Communication Skills From Multiple Perspectives

Jenni Burt; Gary Abel; Marc N. Elliott; Natasha Elmore; Jennifer Newbould; Antoinette Davey; Nadia Llanwarne; Inocencio Maramba; Charlotte Paddison; John Campbell; Martin Roland

doi:10.1370/afm.2241

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Author response to John G. Scott re Burt et al. 16 (4): 330
Jenni A Burt

Published on: 31 July 2018
What can be counted
John G. Scott

Published on: 30 July 2018

Published on: (31 July 2018)
Page navigation anchor for Author response to John G. Scott re Burt et al. 16 (4): 330
Author response to John G. Scott re Burt et al. 16 (4): 330
Jenni A Burt, Senior Social Scientist
John G. Scott, in response to our paper (The Evaluation of Physicians' Communication Skills From Multiple Perspectives, 16 (4): 330), rightly points out that mixed methods studies have an important role to play in examining the meaning of patient feedback on physician's communication skills. Our conclusions, which included the fact that some patients are hesitant in reporting negative experiences of care, were in fact f...
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John G. Scott, in response to our paper (The Evaluation of Physicians' Communication Skills From Multiple Perspectives, 16 (4): 330), rightly points out that mixed methods studies have an important role to play in examining the meaning of patient feedback on physician's communication skills. Our conclusions, which included the fact that some patients are hesitant in reporting negative experiences of care, were in fact founded on an extensive multi-method program of research. This included in-depth qualitative interviews with patients, using video elicitation techniques in which patients watched videos of their recent GP consultation and reflected on their responses to their experience questionnaire. Our findings are documented in a number of papers, notably:
Burt J, Campbell J, Abel G, Aboulghate A, Ahmed F, Asprey A, et al. Improving patient experience in primary care: a multimethod programme of research on the measurement and improvement of patient experience. Programme Grants Appl Res 2017;5(9) doi:10.3310/pgfar05090
Burt J, Newbould J, Abel G, Elliott MN, Beckwith J, Llanwarne N, Elmore N, Davey A, Gibbons C, Campbell J, Roland M. Investigating the meaning of 'good' or 'very good' patient evaluations of care in English general practice: a mixed methods study. BMJ Open. 2017 Mar 2;7(3):e014718. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2016-014718.
Competing interests: None declared
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Competing Interests: None declared.
Published on: (30 July 2018)
Page navigation anchor for What can be counted
What can be counted
John G. Scott, Family Physician
Burt et al concluded that patient's rating of clinician-patient communication was more generous that clinician rating because patients were reluctant to say anything negative about their clinician. They clearly valued the reports of experienced communication raters as more valuable than patients' rating.
The only thing that could resolve this disparity is to do qualitative interviews with patients about their ex...
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Burt et al concluded that patient's rating of clinician-patient communication was more generous that clinician rating because patients were reluctant to say anything negative about their clinician. They clearly valued the reports of experienced communication raters as more valuable than patients' rating.
The only thing that could resolve this disparity is to do qualitative interviews with patients about their experience of communication with clinicians. Simply stating that patients are more generous based on previous quantitative surveys is a circular argument. The quality of the long term relationship between the clinicians and their patients, which probably has a great deal to do with how patients assessed the the index visit was not addressed in this study.
This is a perfect example of where a mixed methods study would have been much more revealing than a quantitative study alone.
Reference: Scott, J. G., Cohen, D., Dicicco-Bloom, B., Miller, W. L., Stange, K. C., & Crabtree, B. F. (2008). Understanding healing relationships in primary care. Annals of Family Medicine, 6(4), 315-322. http://doi.org/10.1370/afm.860
Competing interests: None declared
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Competing Interests: None declared.