Communicating with patients will increase the effectiveness of treatment

Researchers working at Sydney University of Technology, Australia, have discovered that failing communication between patients and emergency room health workers will result in reduced treatment efficacy and security. The whole of the patients also became more precarious.

The study is part of a cooperative project between the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, with five major hospitals in the state of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). This study was conducted for more than three years, including more than 1000 hours of live observation, 150 interviews and included voice recordings of 82 patients during their consultations.

Professor Diana Slade (left) with one of the co-authors of this study is Professor Jane Stein-Parbury (right)

"This is one of the largest research projects in the medical field of international stature to provide evidence of misunderstandings in communication between doctors and patients, which will affect the diagnosis results. and reducing treatment efficacy, suggesting an urgent need for emergency room doctors to be better trained in communication skills with patients , "said Professor Diana Slade, team leader.

Professor Diana Slade said the results of the study aimed to create new initiatives, support hospitals and health service providers in reforming processes and procedures to better manage them. Communication between health workers and patients, providing communication skills training for health workers in a new, more effective way in emergency situations.

" Our study presents a detailed picture of the importance of communication, increasing the effectiveness of treating patients in health facilities and providing a detailed analysis of how the deliveries continued as well as answered the question of why and at what time communication was unsuccessful, "said Professor Slade.

" The results of this study and previous studies have demonstrated that patients' cognitive processes for hospitals are primarily influenced by the way health workers communicate with patients and understandability of explanations from these employees Most of the complaints at the level against hospitals arise from the poor staff's ability to communicate and the failure of employees. This is in answering questions for patients, "said Professor Slade.

From the results of this study one can surmise that prolonged hospitalization, misdiagnosis, unnecessary suffering and potentially fatal incidents may arise in hospital emergency rooms , derived from the misunderstanding of doctors in the process of communicating with patients.

The number of patients going to hospital emergency rooms in Australia has increased by an average of 4.9% per year since 2003, with more than 7,000,000 complaints regarding emergency rooms, only in 2010 alone.

Also in 2010 there were 235,037 patient complaints about emergency rooms in five major hospitals in the state of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

" The pressures are increasing as health workers in hospitals face soaring numbers of patients, which will make the emergency room communication even more deadlocked ," according to Professor Slade.

Communication in the hospital emergency room is very complicated. Communication in the emergency state of medicine is primarily verbal communication and a combination of time pressure, increasing presentation load and expectations that clinicians work in multidisciplinary groups, having that is to have an accurate understanding through communication between doctors and patients in psychological and physical burdens.

"Patients are often 'told' about diagnosis, treatment plans and other medical care they are entitled to, which is rarely expressed in writing, because this communication occurs in one pressure. time forces, often resulting in incomplete transfers of information about patients, and other factors such as culture, language and socio-economic conditions and other experiences. each other makes the communication process more complicated . "

The above study shows that two major areas of communication affect the quality of treatment of patients through an emergency department how medical knowledge is communicated and how the relationship Physicians and patients, built.

"Doctors must communicate effectively with patients, " Professor Slade said. " Doctors must create an interpersonal relationship and build relationships with patients. Strategies and skills in both areas of medical knowledge and communication ability. Interpersonal relations must become an essential component in the training and evaluation of emergency room doctors. "