Investigation of difference of perception between doctor and patient in physician-patient relationship from perspective of multiculturism

Purpose: Information asymmetry and universalism of medical profession in physician-patient relationship (PPR) have long been used to explain problem of doctor-patient communication. The picture of short period of visit and too many professional terms applied are always shown in out-patient service. In fact, from the perspective of multiculturism, doctor and patient communicates with each other involving “subject with multiple identities”. In this study, difference of perception of PPR between doctor and patient is taken into consideration to investigate the PPR from perspective of “medicine of sociology”.

Materials and Methods: The measurement of quality of medical service for PPR in this study is derived from the gap model of PZB. Five domains of which consists in questionnaire are subjectivity, power/knowledge, ethic of responsibility, ethic of care and literacy of multiculturism, respectively. The data were collected by face to face interview in one regional teaching hospital in Kaohsiung city. 150 patients of out-patient department and 15 doctors whose various specialist is physician, surgeon, gynecologist and pediatrician enrolled in this study. From perspective of multiculturism, statistic analysis by SPSS is performed to investigate the effect of difference of perception in PPR.

Results: Domains of ethic of responsibility and care, subjectivity, and skills of literacy of multiculturism have significant influence on difference of perception in PPR.

Conclusion: Effectiveness in shortening the difference of perception in PPR to achieve improved PPR is to be determined. In addition to hardware facilities and medical profession, inter-subjectivity between patient and doctor interaction, care and literacy with humanity remained important components to construction satisfied PPR. Further, by development in praxis and focus on trend of multiculturism, imbalanced PPR may find the way out.