Interpersonal Skills Detail com

8/4/2019 Interpersonal Skills Detail com

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Interpersonal Skills

4 detailed studies

Health Psychology


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Smiling a lot can make people

happy.

Zuckerman et al (1981) divided males and

females into three groups.

1.The first group saw a film of a pleasant scene.2.The second group were shown a film of a

neutral scene.

3.The third group were shown a nasty film.


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Within each group

1.a third were asked to suppress their facial

expressions,

2.a third were asked to exaggerate theirfacial expressions

3.and the other third were not asked to do

anything apart from watching the film.


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Results

The people who exaggerated their facial

expressions showed higher levels of arousal and

reported stronger positive or negative emotional

reactions, compared with the other two groups.

So making patients smile will make them feel

happier about themselves.

Learning to suppress facial expressions at times ofstress could reduce stress.


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Savage and Armstrong (1990)

Savage and Armstrong (1990) found that

patients were more satisfied with a

directed consultation rather than asharing consultation.


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Directed consultation statements made such as

you are suffering from, it is essential that

you take this medication, you should be better

in . days, come and see me in . days.

Sharing consultation what do you think that is

wrong?, Would you like a prescription?, Are

there any other problems?, When would youlike to come and see me again?


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359 randomly selected patients free to choose

their doctor. 200 results used.

2 questionnaires one immediately and one a

week later.

Results overall a high level of satisfaction, but

higher for directed group. Higher for

satisfaction with explanation of doctor and withown understanding of the problem. More likely

to report that they had been greatly helped.


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Mooney, K. M., 2001

Mooney, K. M., 2001, 'Predictors of

patient satisfaction in an outpatient

surgery clinic. Plastic SurgicalNursing, 21, 3, 162-4


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Aim

To investigate which elements of the

patient-practitioner relationship lead to

satisfied patients.


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Method

A survey.


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Participants

An opportunity sample of 345 patients (96

per cent of those asked to participate)

attending an out-patient plastic surgeryclinic.

Informed consent was obtained.


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Procedure

Following their visit to their doctor, the

participants were asked to complete the

Visit Specific Patient SatisfactionQuestionnaire (VSQ-9), a self-report, nine-

item questionnaire that has been tested

previously as a valid measure of patient-

practitioner relationships and can be

completed in about two minutes.


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Procedure

The participants were required to evaluate itemssuch as how long they waited to get anappointment, time spent waiting at the surgery

before the doctor was seen, the explanation givenabout any procedures undergone, the technicalskills (thoroughness, competence andcarefulness) of the practitioner and the

interpersonal skills (courtesy, sensitivity,friendliness etc.) of the practitioner on a 5-pointscale ranging from poor to excellent.


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Procedure

The responses from each participant were

then transferred linearly to a 0-100 scale,

with 100 corresponding to 'excellent' and 0corresponding to 'poor'. Responses to the

nine VSQ-9 items were then averaged to

create a VSQ-9 score for each participant.


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Results

60 per cent rated their overall level of satisfaction asexcellent and 30 per cent as very good. The quality ofinteraction with the practitioner received the highestindividual rating, while those concerned with thefacilities and access to services were rated lower. Theinterpersonal skills of the doctor were found tocontribute more to patient satisfaction than thetechnical skills of the doctor and were considered to

be a better predictor of patient satisfaction.


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Smucker, D. R., Konrad, T.

R., Curtis, P., Carey, T. S.,1998

, 'Practitioner self-confidence and

patient outcomes in acute back

pain',Archives of Family Medicine,

7, 223-8


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Aim

To investigate the extent to which

practitioners' levels of self-confidence act

as a predictor of outcome for patients withlower back pain.


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Method

A correlation, utilizing a questionnaire to

measure self-confidence and attitudes and

telephone interviews to measure patients'well-being.


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Participants

189 doctors and chiropractors, randomly

selected from licensing databases in North

Carolina, USA, who regularly treated

patients for lower back pain. Informed

consent was obtained.


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Procedure

The medical practitioners were sent a postalquestionnaire to complete. The questionnairecontained ten items such as, 'I lack the diagnostic

knowledge and tools to treat someone with lowerback pain', 'I know exactly what to do to treatsomeone with lower back pain' and 'I feel verycomfortable treating people with lower back pain',which assessed their self-confidence (the first four

items on the scale) and attitudes (the next four itemson the scale) in dealing with patients with lower

back pain.


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Procedure

The last two items dealt with knowledge of theprogression from acute to chronic low back painand patient satisfaction with treatment. The

practitioners had to use a 5-point Likert scale (1 =strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree) to record theirlevel of agreement with each statement. The scoresfor the first four items were added together togenerate a self-confidence score for each

practitioner and those for the next four yielded anattitude score. The last two items were treatedindividually.


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Procedure

The medical practitioners were also asked to providecontact details of any patients who came to them fortreatment for lower back pain and had not yet receivedany treatment. Additionally, all the patients had to own a

telephone and be able to speak English. A total of 1633patients were recruited and informed consent wasobtained from them. The patients were telephonedimmediately after their initial visit to their practitioner,and again after two, four, eight, 12 and 24 weeks or untilthey had fully recovered from this episode of lower backpain.


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Procedure

The length of time until they had returned to a

level of functioning equal to that before the onset

of the lower back pain was recorded.

The practitioners' self-confidence scores were

then compared with the length of time taken by

the patients to return to the same level of

functioning as prior to the lower back pain.


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Results

179 (95 per cent) of the 189 practitioners sent thequestionnaire returned it, and of these 162 (86 percent - 107 doctors, 55 chiropractors) completed allten items.

A strong correlation was found between scores on thefirst four items (measuring self-confidence) and thenext four items (measuring attitudes) for both doctorsand chiropractors. The relationship between the item

dealing with patient satisfaction and the self-confidence score was higher for the chiropractorsthan the doctors.


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Results

Despite differences in levels of self-confidence and

attitudes among the health practitioners, there was no

significant relationship for either of these factors withthe length of time it took patients to recover

functionality. Thus it is not possible to use a

practitioner's level of self-confidence or attitude as an

indicator of the speed of recovery from lower backpain.


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