Clinical trial NCT01428011: Patient-Provider Communication and Medication Adherence
Official title: Racial Differences in Patient-Provider Communication and Medication Adherence
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Conditions: Hypertension
Keywords: Hypertension
Patient-Provider Communication
Medication Adherence
Race Concordance
Lead sponsor: NYU Langone Health
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
First posted: 2011-09-02
Enrollment: 114
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Observational model: COHORT
Time perspective: PROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: Patients will be recruited from Primary Care Clinics in New York City

Brief summary: The purpose of this study is to understand how communication between African American and white patients with high blood pressure and his/her primary care provider effects whether a patient decides to take their high blood pressure medications.

Detailed description: High blood pressure contributes to the racial disparities in death rates between minority patients and whites. Understanding the factors underlying racial disparities in high blood pressure-related outcomes is a major focus of Healthy People 2010. Several factors including access to care, patient preferences and lower socioeconomic status have been used to explain the differences seen in timely and effective delivery of preventive care between minority patients and whites. However, when these factors are controlled for, health disparities still exist. Recently, the Institute of Medicine identified interpersonal processes within the patient-provider relationship as a potential reason for the health disparities between minority and white patients. Specifically, providers' communication, including the ability to listen, collaborate, and be empathetic during the medical encounter has emerged as an important dimension of care that differs by race. Despite the increasing evidence that racial differences in patient-provider communication affects patient care, many of these studies have examined issues related to processes of care such as patient satisfaction with little attention to intermediate outcomes such as medication adherence. Further, studies that have used audio-taped analysis to examine racial differences in patient-provider communication are limited by one-dimensional coding systems that lack the ability to capture the mutual influence the patient and provider have on one another during the interaction. Thus, the potential pathways through which patient-provider communication contribute to high blood pressure-related disparities in minority patients compared to whites is not clearly understood. This proposed two-phase, mixed-methods research study, provides a unique opportunity to address these gaps by clarifying the effect of patient's race on patient-provider communication and medication adherence among 120 hypertensive African American and white patients receiving care in primary care practices. Specifically, findings from a qualitative analysis of patient-provider communication (Phase 1) will inform the development of a conceptual model that will be used to quantitatively evaluate the relationship between patient's race, patient-provider communication and medication adherence (Phase 2).

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* self-identification as black/African American or white/Caucasian
* Receiving care in the Bellevue Hospital Ambulatory Care Practice from the same primary care provider for at least 3 months;
* Diagnosed with hypertension (ICD: # 401-401.9)
* Taking at least one antihypertensive medication;
* Age18 years or older
* Fluent in English

Exclusion Criteria:

* Unable to give informed consent
* Refuse to participate

Primary outcomes:
measure: Medication Adherence
timeFrame: 3-months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: patient-provider communication
timeFrame: Baseline
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: New York
country: United States
facility: Bellevue Hospital Ambulatory Care Practive
state: New York
Study officials:
affiliation: NYU School of Medicine
name: Antoinette Schoenthaler, EdD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: