The Process of Interactional Sensitivity Coding in Health Care: Conceptually and Operationally Defining Patient-Centered Communication

Abstract

This study aimed to develop a process for measuring sensitivity in provider–patient interactions to better understand patient-centered communication. The authors developed the Process of Interactional Sensitivity Coding in Healthcare (PISCH) by incorporating a multimethod investigation into conversations between physicians and their patients with type 2 diabetes. The PISCH was then applied and assessed for its reliability across the unitization of interactions, the activities that were reflected, and the characteristics of patient-centered interactional sensitivity that were observed within each unit. In most cases, the PISCH resulted in reliable analysis of the interactions, but a few key areas (shared decision making, enabling self-management, and responding to emotion) were not reliably assessed. Implications of the test of this coding scheme include the expansion of the theoretical notion of interactional sensitivity to the health care context, rigorous implementation of a multimethod measurement development that relied on qualitative and quantitative assessments, and important future questions about the role of communication concepts in future interpersonal research.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Verilogue, Inc., for access to their corpus of doctor–patient dialogues. For more information on Verilogue's extensive medical communication dataset, please contact Jamison Barnett at [email protected].