Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: the amount of medical information available to the general public has increased tremendously since the invention of the internet. Patients have now become active participants in their treatment process. However, it is not comprehensively known how doctors cope with patients’ information requests.
Objectives:
1) To identify the resource used by physicians in providing definitive answers to patients’ queries related to benefits and harms of treatment(s).
2) To identify physicians’ perceptions regarding the scientific reliability and efficacy of the information resources related to benefit and harms of treatment(s).
Methods: all attending physicians were eligible for enrollment. We employed a mixed methods approach that included an open ended, in-depth, qualitative interview using a pilot-tested interview guide with physicians at affiliated academic medical centers in the USA. We analyzed interview transcripts using thematic analysis.
Results: so far we have data from nine Emergency Physicians (EP) and 12 hospitalists in this study, which shows:
1) 67% of the EPs and hospitalists mentioned that their patients had diagnostic-related questions;
2) 58% of the hospitalists mentioned that their patients had treatment-related questions compared with 33% of the EPs;
3) the most popular information source used by patients as reported by both EPs and hospitalists was Google (56% and 67%, respectively);
4) 100% of hospitalists versus 67% of EPs reported positive interactions with patients during the discussion of the information searched for;
5) 100% of hospitalists preferred Up-to-Date compared to only 11% of EPs, who were using Library services (89%) as their primary source of information;
5) the use of journal articles and PubMed was similar between EPs and hospitalists (44% and 58%, respectively); and
6) neither showed a strong preference for professional society-based resources (22% EPs, 8.3% hospitalists).
Conclusions: in this single-site pilot cohort, most of the patients seen by hospitalists had treatment-related questions, while only some patients had such questions for their EPs. Most of the physicians had positive interactions with their patients relating to information brought to the table by their patients. There were some differences among physicians’ choices for information sources (Up-to-Date versus Library services).
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: understanding patients’ information needs related to benefits and harms of treatments is critical in shared decision making. Similarly, it is critical to understand how physicians search resources when providing definitive answers to their patients’ queries related to benefits and harms of treatment(s). Improvement in physicians' training regarding effectively searching, understanding and translation of the relevant evidence-based information for their patients will facilitate shared decision making, and lead to superior health outcomes for their patients.
Objectives:
1) To identify the resource used by physicians in providing definitive answers to patients’ queries related to benefits and harms of treatment(s).
2) To identify physicians’ perceptions regarding the scientific reliability and efficacy of the information resources related to benefit and harms of treatment(s).
Methods: all attending physicians were eligible for enrollment. We employed a mixed methods approach that included an open ended, in-depth, qualitative interview using a pilot-tested interview guide with physicians at affiliated academic medical centers in the USA. We analyzed interview transcripts using thematic analysis.
Results: so far we have data from nine Emergency Physicians (EP) and 12 hospitalists in this study, which shows:
1) 67% of the EPs and hospitalists mentioned that their patients had diagnostic-related questions;
2) 58% of the hospitalists mentioned that their patients had treatment-related questions compared with 33% of the EPs;
3) the most popular information source used by patients as reported by both EPs and hospitalists was Google (56% and 67%, respectively);
4) 100% of hospitalists versus 67% of EPs reported positive interactions with patients during the discussion of the information searched for;
5) 100% of hospitalists preferred Up-to-Date compared to only 11% of EPs, who were using Library services (89%) as their primary source of information;
5) the use of journal articles and PubMed was similar between EPs and hospitalists (44% and 58%, respectively); and
6) neither showed a strong preference for professional society-based resources (22% EPs, 8.3% hospitalists).
Conclusions: in this single-site pilot cohort, most of the patients seen by hospitalists had treatment-related questions, while only some patients had such questions for their EPs. Most of the physicians had positive interactions with their patients relating to information brought to the table by their patients. There were some differences among physicians’ choices for information sources (Up-to-Date versus Library services).
Patient or healthcare consumer involvement: understanding patients’ information needs related to benefits and harms of treatments is critical in shared decision making. Similarly, it is critical to understand how physicians search resources when providing definitive answers to their patients’ queries related to benefits and harms of treatment(s). Improvement in physicians' training regarding effectively searching, understanding and translation of the relevant evidence-based information for their patients will facilitate shared decision making, and lead to superior health outcomes for their patients.