Factors Associated with Patients' Perceptions of Health

Care Providers' Communication Behavior

3 Key Takeaways
Purpose: To understand if there is a relationship between patients sociodemographic
characteristics and their ratings of communication with respective healthcare providers
1 No significant relationship has been identified between any
sociodemographic variables and patients rating of providers communication
behaviour
Includes: Gender, race, income, education, age, employment, marital status

Positive correlation: Communication behavior was higher in patients who

hold health insurance and respondents who have an usual source of care

3 Negative correlation: Communication behavior was weaker in respondents

who perceived poorer own general health and those who have depressive
symptoms

Implications
Purpose: Deciding how we should act on the research findings on improving doctor-patient
communication
1 Finding: Positive correlation between perceived health care and usual source of
healthcare
Current Practice: Clinics keep a record of past medical history of patients to
allow doctors to better understand patients conditions

Question: Is this sufficient?

2

Finding: Negative correlation between perceived health care and respondents

who perceived poorer own general health and those who have depressive
symptoms

Question: 1) How do we identify such patients at a clinic?

2) Is it justifiable to spend more time with such patients?

Any others?
3

Where do we go from here?

Purpose: Questions to ask ourselves in considering further research to better understand
communication flow between patients and doctors
1 Further research should take into consideration other factors:
Sociodemographic

Health Behavior

Others

Health Insurance
Private / Public

Duration spent with

doctor

Prior knowledge of
own health condition

Number of visits to
clinic per year
2

From Providers point of view: Research assumes that quality of service

provided is unanimous across all sociodemographic and health behaviour.
Is that true?

3 In Singapores Context: Further research to identify if these factors are

relevant among patients and doctors in Singapore, taking into
consideration differences between profile of patients in private and public
clinics

Opinions / Any others?

4