Exploring Physician-Older Patient Communication. A Qualitative Analysis of Communication between Older Patients and General Practitioners

Abstract

An great body of research has been carried out to study physician-patient communication and its impact on quality of care, patient satisfaction, treatment and health. Good physician-patient communication is proved to increase patient’s health. Most of the existent literature on the field has been done on younger patients and only a small part of the studies conducted took into consideration the older patients’ communication and relationship with their doctors. We depart from the idea that age has an important role in doctor-patient interaction, as age moderates the relationship between the style of interaction and patient satisfaction. This study aims to explore the physician-older patient communication by analyzing the way elders experience the relationship with the general practitioner. By doing so, the current study looks at the way elders perceive their relationship with the general practitioner and the level of their satisfaction. Elements like tone of voice, forms of address, topics, explanations given, motifs of the visit have been considered in the present study in order to explore de doctor-older patient communication.