Factors Influencing Doctors?? Awareness of the Life Problems of Middle-aged Patients

Bibliographic Data

ID9105038
AuthorsMark J Yaffe (0000-0001-5488-1972, McGill University, corresponding author), Moira Stewart (0000-0002-5552-0762), Moira A Stewart
Year1985
Volume23
Issue11
Pages1276-1282
Publication date1985-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedical Care (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0025-7079 • E-ISSN: 1537-1948
PublisherOvid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1097/00005650-198511000-00006
PMID4068795
OpenAlexW1976639130
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited11

Because individuals who deal effectively with life events may be healthier, doctors may need to be aware of the important events in their patients' lives. This study was designed to document the actual level of awareness that 20 community family practitioners had of their middle-aged patients' life events. A total of 116 patients completed a life events questionnaire when they visited their family doctors. The physicians completed a similar questionnaire for each patient. A comparison between the patients' and physicians' responses provided the measure of doctors' awareness. Doctors were found to be aware of approximately 25% of all patients' life events. Awareness was inversely associated with patients' self-reliance and directly associated with age of patients and with those events having a negative effect. The observed level of knowledge may be unacceptably low, in which case physicians must find ways to improve their knowledge. Alternatively, this level of knowledge may be realistic, given that some patients may not need to discuss their life events, particularly self-reliant patients or patients experiencing events that did not affect them negatively. If this is the case, family physicians need to find ways of determining the patients and events for which their knowledge would be helpful

Affect (linguistics) · Family medicine · Middle level · Empathy and Medical Education · Medicine · Optimism, Hope, and Well-being · Psychology · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology