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Biomedical subjects

M Deveugele

Publications and source records attributed to M Deveugele.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

[Decision-making processes and medical care at the end of life].

The Federal Authority, the Ministry of Public Health and Environment, charged the Ghent University and the Brussels Free University to produce a continuous recording tool of data's concerning the decision-making processes and the medical care at the end of life, after defining the present state of the art. This tool is built up from a glossary and a questionnaire made up of closed questions with a prospective part and a retrospective part, and leaving the possibility of comments. This questionnaire, first submit to experts and two ethic committees, was sent anonymously to a broad sample of doctors of which 193 answered. This study brings out important information on the application of the laws on palliative care, on the rights of the patient and on euthanasia; it would be advisable to organise in the future a further systematic recording of the end of life conditions throughout a standardized questionnaire whose first version is presented here.

Humans↗
PubMed2005

Socio-economic status of the patient and doctor-patient communication: does it make a difference?

This systematic review, in which 12 original research papers and meta-analyses were included, explored whether patients' socio-economic status influences doctor-patient communication. Results show that patients from lower social classes receive less positive socio-emotional utterances and a more directive and less participatory consulting style, characterised by significantly less information giving, less directions and less socio-emotional and partnership building utterances from their doctor. Doctors' communicative style is influenced by the way patients communicate: patients from higher social classes communicate more actively and show more affective expressiveness, eliciting more information from their doctor. Patients from lower social classes are often disadvantaged because of the doctor's misperception of their desire and need for information and their ability to take part in the care process. A more effective communication could be established by both doctors and patients through doctors' awareness of the contextual communicative differences and empowering patients to express concerns and preferences.

Affect↗
PubMed2003

Communication in general practice: differences between European countries.

BACKGROUND: Based on differences in national health care system characteristics such as the gatekeeping role of GPs (at the macrolevel) and on diverging GP and patient characteristics (at the microlevel), communication may differ between countries. Knowledge of the influence of these characteristics on doctor-patient communication will be important for setting European health care policies. OBJECTIVES: Our objectives were (i) to compare doctor-patient communication in general practice between European countries; and (ii) to investigate the influence of the gatekeeping system and GP and patient characteristics on doctor-patient communication in general practice. METHODS: Fifteen patients per GP (in total 2825 patients) of 190 GPs in six European countries were included. Participating countries were The Netherlands, Spain, the UK (gatekeeping countries), Belgium, Germany and Switzerland (non-gatekeeping countries). Data were collected by means of patient and GP questionnaires and observation of videotaped consultations, and analysed by one-way and multilevel, multivariate analysis. RESULTS: Differences in communication between countries were found in: affective and instrumental behaviour; biomedical and psychosocial talk; GPs' patient-directed gaze; and consultation length. The study showed that GPs' gatekeeping role (with registered patients) was less important for doctor-patient communication than was expected. Patient characteristics such as gender, age, having psychosocial problems, and familiarity between the doctor and the patient were the most important in explaining differences in communication. CONCLUSION: The gatekeeping role of GPs is hardly important in explaining doctor-patient communication. The relationship is more complex than expected. Patient and GP characteristics are more important. Cultural factors should be included in future studies.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Is GP-patient communication related to their perceptions of illness severity, coping and social support?

The aim of the study was to explore the relationship between the communicative behaviour of general practitioner and patient on the one hand and the perception of the coping behaviour of the patient, the severity of the complaint and the presence of social support on the other hand. From 20 general practitioners (GP), 15 consultations per GP were videotaped and analysed using the Roter Interaction Analysis System. Doctors and patients rated their perceptions on questionnaires. The finding was that doctors and patients used predominantly task-oriented (instrumental) behaviour, with some exceptions. With older patients and patients with low social support the GPs used more affective communication, mainly consisting of social talk and mutual agreement. In the case of complex problems, the GP paid special attention to the relationship with the patient. Within the domain of instrumental communication, some differences between doctor and patient were observed. Although doctors and patients exchanged a lot of information about medical issues, patients gave information about their lifestyle and emotions, which the doctors did not verbally explore. In consultations where the patient perceived the complaint as severe, he or she was more focussed on the medical content. When the GP considered psychosocial issues important, doctor and patient communicated about lifestyle, emotions and social relations. This doctor-patient correlation was not found when patients perceived their problem as psychosocial.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2000

Doctor-patient communication in different European health care systems: relevance and performance from the patients' perspective.

Our aim is to investigate differences between European health care systems in the importance attached by patients to different aspects of doctor-patient communication and the GPs' performance of these aspects, both being from the patients' perspective. 3658 patients of 190 GPs in six European countries (Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland) completed pre- and post-visit questionnaires about relevance and performance of doctor-patient communication. Data were analyzed by variance analysis and by multilevel analysis. In the non-gatekeeping countries, patients considered both biomedical and psychosocial communication aspects to be more important than the patients in the gatekeeping countries. Similarly, in the patients' perception, the non-gatekeeping GPs dealt with these aspects more often. Patient characteristics (gender, age, education, psychosocial problems, bad health, depressive feelings, GPs' assessment of psychosocial background) showed many relationships. Of the GP characteristics, only the GPs' psychosocial diagnosis was associated with patient-reported psychosocial relevance and performance. Talking about biomedical issues was more important for the patients than talking about psychosocial issues, unless the patients presented psychosocial problems to the GP. Discrepancies between relevance and performance were apparent, especially with respect to biomedical aspects. The implications for health policy and for general practitioners are discussed.

Adolescent↗