PHYSICIAN AND OLDER PATIENT INTERACTION.
Contributors: University of Missouri--Columbia.
Published: 1987
Number of pages: 164
Subjects: Psychology, Social.; Health Sciences, Human Development.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The patient-physician interaction is an important part of the delivery of medical care. The quality of medical care is strongly influenced by the nature of the patient-physician interaction. Affiliative and controlling behaviors were examined as aspects of the nature of the interaction between physician and patient.

The interaction between patient and physician is influenced by a variety of antecedent factors. Age is an easily identifiable attribute used in categorizing persons and was selected as an important antecendent factor affecting the interaction. Because chronic disease is so prevalent among the aged (and so different from acute disease) it was studied as a factor influencing the interaction.

The consequences of the patient-physician interaction are of considerable practical importance and sociological interest. Patient satisfaction and adherence with suggestions made by the physician were studied as consequences of the interaction.

The analysis revealed that older patients expressed more controlling behaviors during the interaction than did younger patients. Some comparisons with younger patients experiencing chronic disease were made. Physicians were found to express less affiliative behavior with older patients than with younger patients. The findings were congruent with an explanation that the older are devalued as patients (and thus less affiliative behaviors were expressed toward older patients) and that older patients developed a skepticism toward medical care based on experiences with chronic disease which are not curable by medical science (and thus older patients expressed more controlling behaviors). Although not all the hypotheses were supported, there was some evidence of differences in the patient-physician interaction related to the age of the patient.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-07, Section: B, page: 2923.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI - COLUMBIA, 1987.

School code: 0133.