Evaluation of communication skills of physicians about asthma.
OBJECTIVE
Communication skills in medical practice are important. To assess the communication skills of physicians about asthma, we undertook this study.


METHODS
One thousand four hundred and twenty one physicians attending the annual conference of association of physicians of India volunteered to participate in the study. They were divided into three categories. 'Teachers' group 1, (n = 131), 'Clinicians', group 2, (n = 951) and 'Students' group 3, (n = 339). Questionnaire containing ten most frequently asked questions by asthmatic patients were given to the physicians. A panel of three patients assessed the replies of these question and graded them as 'Convincing', 'Just convincing' and 'Not convincing'.


RESULTS
Replies of only 2% of physicians were graded as convincing, 15.6% just convincing and 82.4 as not convincing. Among group 1 none gave a convincing reply while replies of 2.2% of group 2 and 2.4% of group 3 were graded as convincing. The difference in results was not significant statistically on comparing the three groups (p > 0.1).


CONCLUSIONS
Communication skills are the integral part of patient care and management. Our study demonstrated lack of effective communication skills among physicians.
Singh
V
V
Pulmonary Division, Department of Medicine, SMS Medical College, Jaipur.
Khandelwal
R
R
Bohra
S
S
Gupta
R
R
Gupta
B S
BS
D001249:Asthma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires