Annals of family medicine
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Annals of family medicine · Jan 2013
Review Comparative StudyHow long does a cough last? Comparing patients' expectations with data from a systematic review of the literature.
We hypothesized that antibiotic overuse for acute cough illness (ACI) is in part due to a mismatch between patients' expectations and the natural history of ACI. ⋯ There is a mismatch between patients' expectations regarding the duration of ACI and the actual duration based on the best available evidence. Efforts to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use should target this discrepancy.
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Annals of family medicine · Jan 2013
Randomized Controlled TrialIntervention to enhance communication about newly prescribed medications.
Physicians prescribing new medications often do not convey important medication-related information. This study tests an intervention to improve physician-patient communication about newly prescribed medications. ⋯ A physician-targeted educational session improved the content of and enhanced patient ratings of physician communication about new medication prescriptions. Further work is required to assess whether improved communication stimulated by the intervention translates into better clinical outcomes.
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Annals of family medicine · Jan 2013
Comparative StudyClinician suspicion of an alcohol problem: an observational study from the AAFP National Research Network.
In clinical practice, detection of alcohol problems often relies on clinician suspicion instead of using a screening instrument. We assessed the sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values of clinician suspicion compared with screening-detected alcohol problems in patients. ⋯ Clinician suspicion of alcohol problems had poor sensitivity but high specificity for identifying patients who had a positive screening test for alcohol problems. These data support the routine use of a screening tool to supplement clinicians' suspicions, which already provide reasonable positive predictive value.
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Annals of family medicine · Jan 2013
Clinicians' implicit ethnic/racial bias and perceptions of care among Black and Latino patients.
We investigated whether clinicians' explicit and implicit ethnic/racial bias is related to black and Latino patients' perceptions of their care in established clinical relationships. ⋯ This is among the first studies to investigate clinicians' implicit bias and communication processes in ongoing clinical relationships. Our findings suggest that clinicians' implicit bias may jeopardize their clinical relationships with black patients, which could have negative effects on other care processes. As such, this finding supports the Institute of Medicine's suggestion that clinician bias may contribute to health disparities. Latinos' overall greater concerns about their clinicians appear to be based on aspects of care other than clinician bias.