title: Doctors' communication of trust, care, and respect in breast cancer: qualitative study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine how patients with breast cancer want their doctors to communicate with them.
  
  
  METHODS
  Qualitative study.
  
  
  METHODS
  Breast unit and patients' homes.
  
  
  METHODS
  39 women with breast cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  Patients' reports of doctors' characteristics or behaviour that they valued or deprecated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients were not primarily concerned with doctors' communication skills. Instead they emphasised doctors' enduring characteristics. Specifically, they valued doctors whom they believed were technically expert, had formed individual relationships with them, and respected them. They therefore valued forms of communication that are currently not emphasised in training and research and did not intrinsically value others that are currently thought important, including provision of information and choice.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Women with breast cancer seek to regard their doctors as attachment figures who will care for them. They seek communication that does not compromise this view and that enhances confidence that they are cared for. Testing and elaborating our analysis will help to focus communication research and teaching on what patients need rather than on what professionals think they need.
authors.affiliation: Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool L7 8XP.
authors.forename: Emma Burkitt
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Wright
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Holcombe
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Salmon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010551:Personality; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D035502:Trust; D014342:Truth Disclosure