Measuring physician-patient communication using The Observer and sequential analysis
H.E. Eide and A. Finset
Behavioral Sciences in Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Introduction
The aim of this study was to describe the communication process during consultations between cancer patients and oncologists.
Methods
The sample consisted of thirty-six audiotaped consultations with different patients,
administered at an oncology outpatient clinic. The tapes were digitised to the
computer's hard disk by means of Broadway software, and then copied onto CD.
The consultations were then coded with the most frequently used interaction
analysis system in medicine: The Roter Method of Interaction Process Analysis
(RIAS). The
Observer Video-Pro was applied in the coding process.
The data were then transferred from The Observer to GSEQ for Windows 4.0 (Bakeman and Quera 1995) by means of the OTS-program. The interrater-reliability was measured using Cohen's Kappa, and the global sequential association between physician and patient behaviors at several lags was tested with GSEQ.
Results
Results from the interrater-reliability testing and the sequential analysis of the data regarding the characteristics of physician and patient interaction will be presented.
Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2002 , 4th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 27-30 August 2002, Amsterdam, The Netherlands