Abstract
The paternalistic approach to health professional-patient communication is often no longer successful. The main reasons for this include the fact that trust in medicine and health professionals is no longer taken for granted. In many domains, the concepts of 'expert' and 'science' are in shadow. Moreover, patients can access all sorts of health information, including information that is or seems inconsistent with the advice given by their health professionals. This talk aims to illustrate some basic approaches to communication that can enhance health professional-patient interaction. First, health professionals should consider their communication with patients as a form of persuasion. Persuasion, that does not equal manipulation, is a way to communicate that takes into consideration the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes of interlocutors. By adopting a person-centered style, health professionals should present their advice by contextualizing it into the emotional and cognitive setting of the patients. Second, communication should consider the lived experience of patients, that is the impact that a health condition or a preventive behavior has on their quality of life and their experience of pleasure. Indeed, managing health conditions is not just applying health advice: it often demands a change in lifestyles that can negatively impact how patients live their lives. Third, health professionals should develop clear strategies to engage with information that patients find from other sources. Health professionals must ask patients if they disagree with them, and to clarify any eventual difference of opinion. The information age has positively favored a democratization of health information. Yet, it imposes that health systems care for their communication. This talk concludes by presenting main evidence from on how to reinforce hospitals, public health institutions, and health services in communication so that patients want to listen.
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