Use of narrative medicine to identify key factors for effective doctor-patient relationships in severe asthma
Background: In this project the authors use a narrative medicine (NM) approach to assess the promotion of trust in the relationship between physicians and their asthma patients.
Methods: Following a NM educational course for physicians, a research was carried out in which at least 5 written narratives (parallel charts) for each participating physician were collected and qualitatively analysed according to Bury's classification and the Grounded Theory.
Results: The results of this study were of speculative and clinical interest. In particular, 66 participants wrote 314 narratives (246 on adult and 68 on paediatric patients). As a result of applying the NM approach, when the relationships remained problematic, many physicians wrote with a moral style about their adult (67%), and paediatric patients (33%) - especially in cases of asthmatic children's or adolescents' overprotective or absent families (40%) -. On the contrary, physicians who were able to listen to their patients with empathy (35%) made more shared decisions with patients, even with those they initially had a bad relationship. The used words of welcome, interest and acceptance were promoting patients' trust that lead to restoring their activities in 45% of cases, according to physicians self-reporting.
Le indicazioni contenute in questo sito non intendono e non devono in alcun modo sostituire il rapporto diretto tra Medico (professionisti della salute) e Paziente/lettore. È pertanto sempre opportuno consultare sempre il proprio Medico curante e/o Specialista