title: Emotional and informational patient cues: the impact of nurses' responses on recall.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate older cancer patients' informational and emotional cues, how nurses respond to these cues and the effect of cues and responses on patients' information recall.
  
  
  METHODS
  105 cancer patients (aged >or=65 years) completed a recall questionnaire after an educational session preceding chemotherapy treatment. Recall was checked against the actual communication in videorecordings of the consultations. Patients' emotional and informational cues and subsequent responses by the nurse were rated using an adaptation of the Medical Interview Aural Rating Scale (MIARS).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients gave more informational than emotional cues. The most frequent response to emotional cues was distancing followed by acknowledgement. Nurses gave appropriate information in response to the majority of informational cues. Patients' expression of emotional or informational cues did not influence recall; neither did nurses' responses to informational cues. Responses to emotional cues did affect recall. The more nurses responded by giving 'minimal' encouragements (e.g. 'Hmmm'), the more patients recalled, while distancing responses (e.g. switching focus) were associated with lower recall scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Responding to patients' emotions is likely to impact information recall.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results highlight the importance of addressing patients' expressions of emotions in the context of patient education, as it enhances information recall.
authors.affiliation: Screening and Test Evaluation Program, Sydney School of Public Health, Centre for Medical Psychology and Evidence-based Decision-Making, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Jesse
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jansen
authors.forename: Julia C M
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: van Weert
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: de Groot
authors.forename: Sandra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: van Dulmen
authors.forename: Thea J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Heeren
authors.forename: Jozien M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Bensing
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000451:nursing* / Q000523:psychology; D009426:Netherlands; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D012044:Regression Analysis