The Patient-Centred Clinical Method. 2. Definition and Application

TLDR

The article defines the patient‑centred clinical method in operational terms. The method is operationalised by defining patient expectations, feelings, and fears, outlining physician behaviours (facilitations, acknowledgements, cut‑offs, returns), and providing a scoring system for videotaped interviews. The scoring system demonstrated good inter‑observer reliability.

Abstract

In this article, the patient-centred clinical method is described in operational terms. Definitions are given for the patient's expectations, feelings and fears. The physician behaviours described are: facilitations, acknowledgements, cut-offs and returns. Using the definitions, a method was devised for scoring videotaped interviews for the degree of 'patient-centredness'. The method proved to have good inter-observer reliability.