What's in a name?

Abstract

The authors used a questionnaire to elicit the preferences of psychiatric patients for the use of professional titles or first names in their relationships with staff. Most people had definite preferences, and a majority opted for use of first names. There was a desire for greater informality with nurses than with doctors, and a tendency to prefer a socially unequal relationship with medical staff, retaining the professional title when addressing a doctor while asking to be addressed by their first name. Age, gender or the number of admissions did not affect attitude, but there was a non-significant trend towards greater informality during the current admission. These findings are discussed.