Differences in attitude toward patient-centeredness in patients and physicians

Abstract

There have been studies on the patient-centeredness of medical students and physicians in South Korea, but no result has presented the patient-centered attitude of patients and doctors. So, this study intended to compare the attitudes of patients and doctors toward the roles that patients and physicians should play in the health care process. One hundred and fifteen doctors and 264 patients participated in this survey using a structured questionnaire, including sociodemographic data and Patient Practitioner Orientation Scale (PPOS). The PPOS comprises sharing (sharing information, take part in decision making) and caring (respecting one's feelings, interpersonal relationships) subscales. The PPOS scores of the doctors and patient were 3.02 and 3.20. In detail, the doctors' sharing and caring scores were and 3.02 and 3.48, and the those of patients were 3.14 and 3.12, respectively. This results are enough to demonstrate that patients are likely to be patient-centered with regard to sharing and that doctors tend to be patient-centered in terms of caring. The patients' desire to obtain medical information and take part in decision making (sharing) are greater than those of doctors. Doctors had more patient-centered attitude than patients in terms of respects for one's feelings and interpersonal relationships (caring).