ReviewJournal of graduate medical education2013
"Best practice" for patient-centered communication: a narrative review.
Review in Journal of graduate medical education, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 224 papers, 11 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
224 citing papers in PubMed, 11 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Experiences and service-uptake factors of receiving and providing care for meningitis and its sequelae: a qualitative systematic review.BMC medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Exploring the Beliefs, Perceptions, and Experiences of Individuals With Tendinopathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Ethnography of Qualitative Studies.Physical therapy · 2025Pooled it
- Relationally competent attitudes and actions: a systematic review of general practice literature.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2025Pooled it
- Vaccine hesitancy educational interventions for medical students: A systematic narrative review in western countries.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2024Pooled it
- Patient-centered care in the Middle East and North African region: a systematic literature review.BMC health services research · 2023Pooled it
- Opportunities to improve COVID-19 provider communication resources: A systematic review.Patient education and counseling · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Effectiveness of Digital Education on Communication Skills Among Medical Students: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis by the Digital Health Education Collaboration.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Pooled it
- What Do Patients Complain About Online: A Systematic Review and Taxonomy Framework Based on Patient Centeredness.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Interventions to support effective communication between maternity care staff and women in labour: A mixed-methods systematic review.Midwifery · 2018Pooled it
- Trial
- Increasing the psychosocial focus in child developmental assessments: a qualitative study.BMC pediatrics · 2023Trial
- Sexism Interacts with Patient-Physician Gender Concordance in Influencing Patient Control Preferences: Findings from a Vignette Experimental Design.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2020Trial
- Weight-related genomic information and provider communication approach: looking through the lens of patient race.Personalized medicine · 2019Trial
- Theoretical and Pragmatic Adaptation of the 5As Model to Patient-Centered Hypertension Counselling.Journal of health care for the poor and underserved · 2018Trial
- Article
- An exploration of the concept and practice of patient-centered care in medical education in Pakistan.Pakistan journal of medical sciences · 2026Article
- Patient-centered communication in chiropractic education: A cross-sectional survey of chiropractic students in North America.The Journal of chiropractic education · 2026Article
- Reassurance through normalization inadvertently suppresses treatment.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
164 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundCommunicating with patients has long been identified as an important physician competency. More recently, there is a growing consensus regarding the components that define physician-patient communication. There continues to be emphasis on both the need to teach and to assess the communication skills of physicians.
objectiveThis narrative review aims to summarize the work that has been conducted in physician-patient communication that supports the efficacy of good communications skills. This work may also help to define the physician-patient communication skills that need to be taught and assessed.
resultsA review of the literature shows it contains impressive evidence supporting positive associations between physician communication behaviors and positive patient outcomes, such as patient recall, patient understanding, and patient adherence to therapy. There is a consensus about what constitutes "best practice" for physician communication in medical encounters: (1) fostering the relationship, (2) gathering information, (3) providing information, (4) making decisions, (5) responding to emotions, and (6) enabling disease- and treatment-related behavior.
conclusionsEvidence supports the importance of communication skills as a dimension of physician competence. Effort to enhance teaching of communication skills to medical trainees likely will require significant changes in instruction at undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as changes in assessing the developing communication skills of physicians. An added critical dimension is faculty understanding of the importance of communication skills, and their commitment to helping trainees develop those skills.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.