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NURSES’ ATTITUDES TOWARD PHYSICIANS WHO STUTTER FRANKLIN H. SILVERMAN and TAMARA A. BONGEY Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

There have been many studies of the attitudes toward persons who stutter that suggest a belief there are significant differences between stutterers and their nonstuttering peers that are not directly related to speech (Hulit & Wirtz, 1994). With a few exceptions (Silverman, 1990), these differences would be almost universally regarded as negative and consequently, undesirable.

Most of the studies have dealt with general attitudes toward stutterers, rather than toward the occupational competence of ones in particular profes- sions. The few that have-such as the Silverman and Paynter (1990) study of attitudes toward lawyers who stutter-suggest that stutterers are not regarded as being as professionally competent as their peers.

To further assess the degree to which stuttering is likely to detract from the perception of occupational competence, we assessed the attitudes of nurses to- ward physicians who have the disorder. This, to our knowledge, was the first attempt to determine how members of one health-related profession would judge the competence of another who stuttered. We felt that it was important to establish the influence that stuttering is likely to have on a nurse’s percep- tion of a physician’s competence because if it is negative, it could interfere with the ability of such physicians and nurses to work together to promote the welfare of their patients.

Questionnaires containing a 20-scale semantic differential (Silverman, 1993) were completed by 20 nurses, each of whom had a B.S. in Nursing. Ten of the questionnaires contained the phrase “a physician,” whereas the other ten said “a physician who stutters.” The scales were as follows: afraid- unafraid; mature-immature; intelligent-unintelligent; secure-insecure; socia- ble-unsociable; dominant-submissive; boring-not boring; relaxed-tense; emotional-unemotional; competent-incompetent; nervous-calm; confident- not confident; uneducated-educated; soothing-aggravating; contented-discon-

Address correspondence to F. H. Silverman, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Mar- quette University, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881.

Manuscript received May 1, 1996; accepted July 1, 1996.

J. FLUENCY DISORD. 22 (1997), 61-62 0 1997 by Elsevier Science Inc. 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010

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62 F. H. SILVERMAN and T. A. BONGEY

tented; speech unpleasant-speech pleasant; naive-sophisticated; cowardly- brave; reputable-disreputable; and superior-inferior.

The medians of the ratings of each of the 20 scales for each of the two phrases were computed. The differences between the medians for the two phrases exceeded 1.0 for 12 of the scales. All of the differences were in the negative (undesirable) direction. Based on these differences, a physician who stutters (aside from having speech that is less pleasant to listen to) was judged to be more afraid, tense, nervous, and aggravating and to be less mature, intel- ligent, secure, competent, confident, educated, and reputable than one who does not stutter.

The finding of this study that physicians who stutter are regarded as being less competent than their peers is consistent with that of Silverman and Payn- ter (1990). It is also consistent with those of most other studies of attitudes to- ward stutterers.

REFERENCES

Hulit, L. M. & Wirtz, L. (1994). The association of attitudes toward stuttering with selected variables. Journal of Fluency Disorders 19, 247-267.

Silverman, F. H. (1990). Are professors likely to report having “beliefs” about the intelligence and competence of students who stutter? Journal of Fluency Disorders 15, 3 19-32 1.

Silverman, F. H. (1993). Research design and evaluation in speech-language pathology and audiology (3rd edition). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Silverman, F. H. & Paynter, K. K. (1990). Impact of stuttering on perception of occupational competence. Journal of Fluency Disorders 15, 87-9 1.