The Influence of Doctor-patient Communication on Patients' Willingness to Take Medication

Philipps University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Healthy

Treatments: Other: Doctor-centered style of communication; Other: Patient-centered style of communication

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03046940

2016-37v-r

Details and patient eligibility

About

The experiment aims at investigating whether the doctor-patient communication has an influence on patients' willingness to take medication. Patients' attitude towards the medication is manipulated via a critical film sequence. Afterwards patients of the two experimental groups have a communication with one of the investigators of the study. Patients are told that the investigator is a medical doctor. The "doctors" either communicate in a patient-centered or doctor-centered style with the patient. Patients in the control group do not have the possibility to talk to a "medical doctor". Afterwards patients are offered the aforementioned pill that is supposed to be a cognitive enhancer (actually placebo pill). Pill intake is voluntary. The investigators hypothesize that patients in the experimental group with the patient-centered style of communication are more likely to take the pill than patients in the experimental group with the doctor-centered style of communication or patients in the control group.

Enrollment: 120 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18 to 35 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• female
• between 18 and 35 years
• healthy
• adequate ability to see
• fluent in German (reading and writing)

Exclusion criteria

• regular intake of cognitive enhancers/medication that enhances concentration
• intake of psychotropic drugs
• medical or pharmacy students, advanced psychology students
• participants who know the investigators

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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120 participants in 3 patient groups

Control group

No Intervention group

Description:

No communication with a doctor

Patient-centered

Experimental group

Description:

Participants communicate with a doctor that uses a patient-centered style of communication

Treatment:

Other: Patient-centered style of communication

Doctor-centered

Experimental group

Description:

Participants communicate with a doctor that uses a doctor-centered style of communication

Treatment:

Other: Doctor-centered style of communication