Doctors' communication of trust, care, and respect in breast cancer: qualitative study.
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.
Wright
Emma Burkitt
EB
Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool L7 8XP.
Holcombe
Christopher
C
Salmon
Peter
P
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