Does Your Patient Understand Their Treatment Plan? Factors Affecting Patient Understanding of Their Medical Care Treatment Plan in the Inpatient Setting.

Publication/Presentation Date

12-1-2020

Abstract

The empathy and quality of communication between the physician and patient is believed to correlate with patient satisfaction and knowledge of the diagnoses and treatment plan. Examining patients' understanding of their plan can allow providers to better aid patients upon their discharge from the hospital in the hopes of improving home care compliance. We sought to evaluate factors that we hypothesized to have an impact on a patient's ability to understand their medical management plan in the inpatient setting. Over a 14-month period, patients were given a 10-question survey during their stay on the inpatient medical units at a safety-net tertiary care community hospital. The survey was given to patients to self-complete after our research team introduced it. A total of 366 patients were surveyed. Of the patients surveyed, more than two-thirds of participants had a clear idea of the management plan for their condition (68.5%), while 3.1% had no knowledge of their management plan. Significant associations between knowledge of the management plan and participants knowing their attending physician's name (

Volume

7

Issue

6

First Page

1151

Last Page

1157

ISSN

2374-3735

Disciplines

Emergency Medicine

PubMedID

33457558

Department(s)

Department of Emergency Medicine

Document Type

Article

Share

COinS