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1st
appeared 4 January 1999
Study Finds Patients Willing to Talk about
Risky Behavior
A new UCSF study has found that patients are willing to
discuss risky behavior with their primary care physicians and that it matters little
whether they do that face-to-face or with the help of technology.
The study, published in the January edition of the journal Medical Care, found that
patients are willing to disclose behavior that puts them at risk for conditions ranging
from HIV to domestic violence regardless of whether they believe their doctors will
receive the information. In addition, the study found that patients are as willing to
disclose such information in oral or written interviews -- methods previously thought to
hamper discussions -- as they are with the aid of technology, such as computers.
The findings are a key step in opening up dialogue about sensitive subjects -- including
risky sexual behavior, drug and alcohol use and domestic violence -- between doctors and
their patients, said UCSF psychologist Barbara Gerbert, professor and chair of UCSF's
Behavioral Sciences Division in the School of Dentistry and the study's principal
investigator.
Though such discussions can ultimately help reduce patients' health risks, they all too
often don't take place because physicians don't know how to broach the issues and believe
patients don't want to be asked about them, Gerbert said.
The study's findings, however, should help break down such barriers, as now there is proof
that patients believe that it is within their doctors' domain to know about behavior that
can put their health at risk -- and it doesn't much matter what method they use to find
out, Gerbert said.
"Now we know that if asked patients will tell," Gerbert said. "So the
asking on the part of physicians is the important part."
Source: Lordelyn del
Rosario, News Services |
