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Doctors need to listen more to nurses, patients says British researchers

Nurse Leader Weekly, August 13, 2004

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A team of researchers that studied 100 consultations between doctors, nurses, and patients concluded that doctors need to listen more to nurses and patients trying to relay vital information.

The University of York in England research team found that patients considered nurses easy to talk to and approachable. Doctors, however, were people to whom they listened attentively and sought guidance from, rather than people with whom they had a conversation.

Also, while nurses glean important information during their consultations, doctors are not told as much by their patients, although they are listened to attentively.

"It seems paradoxical that patients found it easier to talk with nurses and would say more to them, but took more from what doctors said," said lead researcher Sarah Collins of the Department of Health Sciences. "There are clear potential benefits if this distinction were to be exploited and used in teamworking."

The consultation study also revealed distinctive ways that doctors and nurses talk with patients. For example,

* doctors tended to have more authority and be in a position to make decisions; however, doctors heard less from patients than nurses and did not have the complete picture
* doctors set a sense of direction for the consultation as a whole, while the nurses were more open to anything the patient might want to say

Although they are aware of these differences, healthcare professionals do not exploit them in the best way, according to Collins. "It tended to be that the complement between a doctor's consultation with a patient and a nurse's consultation with a patient was one way-from nurse to doctor," she said.

"Nurses were supporting doctors' work more than doctors were supporting nurses' work, and this inevitably had an effect on whether and how patients' needs and expressed wishes and concerns were met," Collins said.

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