title: Activating community health center patients in developing question-formulation skills: a qualitative study.
abstract: The authors developed and delivered a brief patient activation intervention (PAI) that sought to facilitate physician-patient communication. The intervention was designed to assist low-income, racial/ethnic minority users of community health centers in building skills and confidence asking questions. The PAI takes 8 to 10 minutes to deliver and consists of five steps that can be carried out by individuals with minimal formal medical training. A total of 252 patients waiting to see their physician participated in the intervention and completed the follow-up semistructured interview after their health care visit. The authors describe the intervention and the results of their qualitative evaluation of patient's responses. Overall, the PAI was valued by patients, appeared to add to patients' satisfaction with the health care they received, and was feasible to implement in the primary care setting. Furthermore, findings from this study provide indirect insight regarding factors that influence minority patient's question-asking behavior that include patient's attitudes, social factors, and patient's self-efficacy in question formulation.
authors.affiliation: Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-8430, USA. Wei-Hsin.Lu@stonybrook.edu
authors.forename: Wei-Hsin
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Darwin
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Deen
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rothstein
authors.forename: Luz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Santana
authors.forename: Marthe R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Gold
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D003142:Communication; D003151:Community Health Centers; D003657:Decision Making; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D010358:Patient Participation; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011209:Power, Psychological; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012923:Social Class