Patient perceptions of healthcare provider (un)helpful approaches to explaining health information

ABSTRACT

Healthcare providers give explanations that patients may appreciate or resent. This study examines patients’ perspectives on (un)helpful provider explanation approaches, and whether the approaches are more often mentioned for generalists or specialists. A content analysis was conducted evaluating open-ended responses from U.S. adults. Helpful approaches included providers sharing resources and giving clear explanations; unhelpful approaches included providers being negative, using jargon, and going quickly. Specialists were somewhat more likely than generalists to provide resources and use jargon. Providers could share resources and promote clarity while remaining positive and avoiding jargon when explaining information.

KEYWORDS:

• Provider-patient communication
• explanation
• jargon

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For the “Helpful” and “Unhelpful” coding, percent agreement is reported rather than Kappa for categories representing less than 10% of the data each since they are infrequently occurring: 94–99%.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a Faculty Research and Development Grant from Louisiana State University Shreveport.

Notes on contributors

Grace M. Hildenbrand

Grace M. Hildenbrand, Ph.D. (Purdue University, 2021), is an assistant professor in the Department of Leadership Studies at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.

Michelle L. Ammon

Michelle L. Ammon, Ed.D. (Louisiana State University Shreveport, 2024) is a behavior analyst and adjunct professor with an interest in establishing and maintaining healthy organizational climates in health-related fields.