Abstract
From a clinical perspective, effective and efficient communication is part of a strategy to ensure doctors are providing high-quality care to their patients. Despite the positive impact of effective doctor–patient communication on health outcomes, limited information is available on this in Fiji. This study was carried out to determine the current patients’ perception of doctors’ communication behaviour and identify factors affecting the doctor–patient communication in Fiji. This mixed-method study was conducted in the outpatient setting of three randomly selected health centres in the Suva Subdivision, Fiji. For the quantitative phase, systematic random sampling was used to select the 375 participants who completed the structured questionnaire; of those, 20 participants were selected for the qualitative interview. From the patients’ perception, 45.6% of them perceived doctors’ communication behaviour as good, 53.6% as fair, and 0.8% as poor communication behaviour. Qualitative findings highlight factors such as the attitude of the doctors, their approach, their interaction with the patients, and them providing an explanation as important factors during doctor–patient communication. In Fiji, the majority of patients perceived doctors’ communication behaviour as fair to good and the doctors’ skills were important for effective doctor–patient communication. This study highlighted the importance of doctor–patient communication and suggested that doctors might not be practicing patient-centred care and communication; thus, they need to upgrade their patient-centred communication skills.
Highlights
IntroductionThere is a pool of literature detailing doctor–patient communication, its impact on health outcomes, and highlighting areas for improvement [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
The study findings indicate that for a developing, middle-income Pacific Island country, around half of patients attending outpatient services in the Suva Subdivision in Fiji, consider doctors’ communication behaviour as fair rather than good (53.6% vs. 45.6%)
The results of this study showed that the majority of participants agreed doctors treated them well, explained their medical condition properly, or provided them as much information as they wanted
Summary
There is a pool of literature detailing doctor–patient communication, its impact on health outcomes, and highlighting areas for improvement [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. For Fiji, which is a developing and multicultural island in the Pacific, there is little or no data on current perceptions of doctor–patient communication. Current studies have not been carried out in similar settings to Fiji. It will be difficult to advocate for changes in policy or practice for improvement in health care services as it is not known what is effective and what needs to change. This paper is an attempt to respond to this gap in the literature in the Fijian health care system setting
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