Patient and Provider Interaction

Sparks, L. and Villagran, M. Patient and Provider Interaction . Cambridge : Polity Press 2010 196 pp £55.00 (hbk ) ISBN: 978-0-7456-4536-9 , £17.99 (pbk ) ISBN: 978-0-7456-4537-7 . This book aims to help patients take control of their health and health professionals to improve their communication with patients and caregivers. Patients are urged to become aware of their contribution to communication during their consultations with healthcare providers. The authors use their own experience and extensive research to provide an evidence-based guide on how to go about accessing accurate, evidence-based health information from the provider, and to navigate the complexities of the healthcare system when searching for information. This is a very ambitious book, which urges patients to ask questions about their health in encounters with healthcare professionals. By asking questions it is argued that patients can be helped to self-manage their condition and work collaboratively with healthcare professionals to improve health outcomes. The authors take a global perspective, which moves across organisational and cultural structures to identify the patterns, opportunities and challenges for both patients and providers in relation to communicative competence in healthcare. They link patterns of interaction between providers and patients with positive health outcomes. They challenge readers to think about their own approach to health interactions (whether a healthcare professional, researcher or a patient) and propose that the book could help with difficult moments regarding one’s health. However, the book is based on the cultural context of the US and some of the questions suggested to ask the healthcare provider may feel out of place and uncomfortable in the cultural context of the UK and elsewhere. The authors have been studying health communication for over 25 years. They draw on a wealth of research evidence in health communication and health literacy as well as other evidence such as the experiences of carers, patients and healthcare providers. Therefore they blur the boundary between the patient and provider context, which works surprisingly well. Each of the chapters starts with a story or narrative to capture the interest of the reader. Some of the narratives are humorous and others more poignant and serious. Each chapter of the book contains information that is accessible to expert patients and those with a reasonable level of health literacy who want to learn strategies to become more empowered when taking part in decisions about serious health-related issues. A broad range of topics are covered including challenging conversations, such as breaking bad news, patient resistance to health information, the provider perspective and the cultural and organisational issues in healthcare that support or create barriers to the provision of health information and health literacy. The history and current context of health communication is also briefly discussed, including the historical evolution of biomedical and consumerist models of healthcare and current relationship-centred models of shared decision making. Examples of these models in practice are provided and will be helpful to students of healthcare studying communicative competence. What is refreshing about the book is the way that the issues of the provider of health information are complemented by the responsibilities of the patient; with the possibility of a collaborative model emerging. For example, the authors urge clinicians to use strategies such as ‘open-ended questions to allow patients to express their concerns’ and patients are urged to ‘ask specific questions to get specific answers’. There is a good chapter on the influence of social media and e-health and how the use of new media is seen as a way of complementing and influencing medical encounters. They give examples of web-based self-help therapy for people with mental health issues and the ‘sweet talk system’ for delivering health messages on the mobile phone to young people with Type 1 diabetes. They urge patients to assess the credibility of information on the internet, and provide tips on how to do this. The book is a useful background text for medical and healthcare students as well as a good update for healthcare staff and researchers who need to be vigilant about updating their communication skills in practice. There are plenty of suggestions for developing new and innovative ways to think about what works in terms of patient and provider communication. It is a relief to have a book that takes a global perspective and gets away from the skills-based approach so common in many of the current medical textbooks on communication. There is an excellent list of references to research in health communication, much of it carried out by the authors. It is a useful book to have on the reading list of undergraduate and postgraduate modules in health communication as well as in courses for expert patients. The book will be useful to researchers in health communication and health literacy who are considering how their findings can be applied in practice. The book may appeal to patients and caregivers as it provides many tips about communicating with the care provider. It is unlikely, however, that the book will appeal more generally to patients but it may be a useful text for those who are ‘expert patients’ and who want to get the most out of their consultations with health care providers. In the main it will be read by health professionals and by those who carry out training in communication skills. There is something for everyone in this book. It is a useful background text and overview of the current knowledge of the best way for the patient and the provider to communicate with each other in the context of health and illness. The book has an inclusive goal to communicate evidence-based good practice with providers, patients, researchers and caregivers and is to be recommended

Competence (human resources · Context (archaeology · Health care · Health professionals · Medical education · Political science · Public relations · Medicine · Mental Health and Patient Involvement · Nursing · Psychology · Social Psychology