Comportamento comunicativo e percepção da doença na oncologia: visão de médicos e pacientes

Abstract

This dissertation is composed of two empirical articles derived from a research project developed on the perception of the Oncology physician's communicative behavior, through the perception of doctors and patients. In the first article, it was evaluated the perception of physicians and patients regarding the communicative behavior of the physician concerning the dimensions of challenge; encouragement and praise; non-verbal support; understanding; and friendly relationship and control. In the second article, the physician's communication, also from the perspective of physicians and patients, was evaluated regarding the disease perception dimensions from the Common - Sense Model (identity, causes, consequences, duration, control, coherence and emotional representation). Both studies had an observational cross-sectional design. A total of 68 adult patients with a cancer diagnosis of various types and stages of the disease participated in the study. The participants were also 58 physicians who had been working for at least one year in the field of Oncology. In study 1, the results revealed that physicians and patients perceptions diverged in relation to the dimensions of challenge, encouragement and praise, and control, revealing that physicians believe they stimulate patients to express themselves in the appointments, encourage them to follow the proposed treatment and work together in the medical care, unlike patients' perceptions. In study 2, the results also revealed significant differences regarding the perceptions of physicians and patients regarding the perceptions of the disease in the physician's communication. It was observed that the physicians believed they communicate symptoms, causes, consequences, duration and disease control to patients, while patients did not perceive the same way, demonstrating a distance in communication between them. It is concluded that the evaluations the doctors made of their communication were shown more positive than the patients perception.