Understanding How Patients Perceive Their Medical Providers’ Communication in a Hospital Based Emergency Department Setting
type: CreativeWork
description: Background: In recent years, a chief patient complaint has been that there is a breakdown in communication with their healthcare provider. This is concerning because poor provider-patient communication can lead to reduced medication adherence, misdiagnosis, increased healthcare costs, and even death. Furthermore, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has availed healthcare insurance to more individuals, which will increase the insured patient population. This will lead to a rise in patient visits, but also means that there are not enough physicians to support this new volume of patients. Other healthcare providers, like nurse practitioners and physicians assistants are more likely to be engaged with patients, because of these increased demands. Therefore, understanding how patients perceive communication in all of these groups is essential because, as aforementioned, a lack of good communication can have grave consequences. The purpose of this study was to understand the patient’s perception of the medical doctor-patient communication encounter, the patient’s perceptions of the midlevel-patient communication encounter, and to identify the patient’s perceptions of difference between the two groups. Methods: The research design for this study was descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional. The study engaged a convenience sample of 137 treat and release patients at the emergency department (ED) of Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC). Results: The survey utilized in this study consisted of two parts: the Communication Assessment Tool (CAT) (Makoul, 2007, Appendix A) and the Demographic Questionnaire. The CAT consisted of fourteen items where each item addressed a different aspect of the patient-provider communication encounter. Each item employed the following five-point Likert type scale: 1 = poor, 2 = fair, 3 = good, 4 = very good, 5 = excellent. The Demographic Questionnaire (Appendix B) was developed by the researcher and asked the patient to sel…
abstract: Background: In recent years, a chief patient complaint has been that there is a breakdown in communication with their healthcare provider. This is concerning because poor provider-patient communication can lead to reduced medication adherence, misdiagnosis, increased healthcare costs, and even death. Furthermore, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has availed healthcare insurance to more individuals, which will increase the insured patient population. This will lead to a rise in patient visits, but also means that there are not enough physicians to support this new volume of patients. Other healthcare providers, like nurse practitioners and physicians assistants are more likely to be engaged with patients, because of these increased demands. Therefore, understanding how patients perceive communication in all of these groups is essential because, as aforementioned, a lack of good communication can have grave consequences. The purpose of this study was to understand the patient’s perception of the medical doctor-patient communication encounter, the patient’s perceptions of the midlevel-patient communication encounter, and to identify the patient’s perceptions of difference between the two groups. Methods: The research design for this study was descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional. The study engaged a convenience sample of 137 treat and release patients at the emergency department (ED) of Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC). Results: The survey utilized in this study consisted of two parts: the Communication Assessment Tool (CAT) (Makoul, 2007, Appendix A) and the Demographic Questionnaire. The CAT consisted of fourteen items where each item addressed a different aspect of the patient-provider communication encounter. Each item employed the following five-point Likert type scale: 1 = poor, 2 = fair, 3 = good, 4 = very good, 5 = excellent. The Demographic Questionnaire (Appendix B) was developed by the researcher and asked the patient to sel…
author: Grewal-Virk, Balpreet K
keywords: physician communication, midlevel communication, physician-patient communication, midlevel-patient communication, prompt care communication, Health and Medical Administration, Health Communication, Organizational Communication, Other Communication
date published: 2015-06-22T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T04:33:15Z
provider: Seton Hall University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Seton Hall University