Information gathering skills

I-             Information gathering skills

   A critical part of all doctor-patient interaction involves acquiring information from the patient that enables the doctor to reach an accurate diagnosis of the patient’s condition. In this situation the doctor is the receiver and the patient is the sender. During the interview we do not give information. The following are skills needed for information gathering:

1-    Using an appropriate balance of open to closed-ended questions:

Open ended questions invite extended answers not a “yes/no” response. Example of an open ended question is “please, tell me about your pain”. This provides a better description of the pain than closed questions as “is it a colicky pain?”. They are better used when a description of the patient’s condition is needed. Avoid embarrassing questions (Have you ever have sexually transmitted disease?, Avoid leading questions (Don’t you think that..?) Avoid multiple questions in the same time.

2-    Active listening and silence: Doctor has to invite patient participation, to use silence appropriately as a way of encouraging the patient to express himself and should not judge what a patient says. The followings are the important techniques for active listening:

·         Concentrate on speaker’s message.

·         Keep eye contact.

·         Pay attention to the message rather than the speaker.

·         Mentally summarize what the speaker is saying.

·         The notes of important key notes.

·         Prepare questions or counter arguments.

·         Give the speaker the chance to express himself.

3-    Clarifying patient expectations about the consultation: Doctors need to clarify with the patient what their expectations are about the consultation, this may help to reveal cases where the symptom presented by the patient is not in fact the patient’s main concern. The latter may be called a “hidden agenda”, which if not identified could result in inaccurate diagnosis of the patient’s problem.

4-    Clarifying the information given by the patient: doctors should clarify the meaning of what the patient is saying in order to ensure that the doctor understand his patient fully echoing or restating is a repetition of the speaker’s words followed by a pause. It encourages the speaker to elaborate on a point.

5-    Sequencing events: After obtaining description of the patient’s condition, the doctor should ask the patient to arrange the experienced events in sequence, in order to develop a logical picture of the patient’s condition.

6-    Directing the flow of information: Although it is important to give the patient the opportunity to communicate freely yet, the doctor has to maintain control over the interview content and direct them towards the problem in question.