Maternal Personality and Health Communication in the Pediatric Context

Abstract

Maternal personality and social skills were used to predict both maternal and pediatrician communication patterns during pediatric well-child examinations. Audiotape recordings of mother-pediatrician interaction were collected and analyzed from 78 mothers of children less than 2 years of age at 5 private practice pediatric offices; questionnaires were completed at home by the mothers. Canonical and zero-order correlations indicated that specific utterances made by both mothers and pediatricians can be predicted from the mother's personality (particularly with regard to openness to experience, extraversion, and neuroticism) and from the mother's social skills, providing support for a dynamic mutuality model of medical communication. Theoretical and applied implications for doctor training and development of parent education programs are discussed.