We undertook a study to observe in detail the primary care interactions and communications of patients with newly diagnosed diabetes over time. In addition, we sought to identify key points in the process where miscommunication might occur.
All health interactions of 32 patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes were recorded and tracked as they moved through the New Zealand health care system for a period of approximately 6 months. Data included video recordings of patient interactions with the health professionals involved in their care (eg, general practitioners, nurses, dietitians). We analyzed data with ethnography and interaction analysis.
Challenges to effective communication in diabetes care were identified. Although clinicians showed high levels of technical knowledge and general communication skill, initial consultations were often driven by biomedical explanations out of context from patient experience. There was a perception of time pressure, but considerable time was spent with patients by health professionals repeating information that may not be relevant to patient need. Health professionals had little knowledge of what disciplines other than their own do and how their contributions to patient care may differ.
Despite current high skill levels of primary care professionals, opportunities exist to increase the effectiveness of communication and consultation in diabetes care. The various health professionals involved in patient care should agree on the length and focus of each consultation.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 47. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 January 2018.
All research outputs
#1,139,799
of 34,560,275 outputs
Outputs from Annals of Family Medicine
#442
of 2,393 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#19,835
of 497,640 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Annals of Family Medicine
#4
of 20 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,560,275 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,393 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 38.3. This one has done well, scoring higher than 81% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 497,640 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 20 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 80% of its contemporaries.
