Observational studyBMJ open2023
Observational study on the timing and method of interruption by hospital consultants during the opening statement in outpatient consultations.
Observational study in BMJ open, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Integrating Therapeutic Silence in Serious Illness Communication #509.Journal of palliative medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo analyse verbal interruptions by Dutch hospital consultants during the patient's opening statement in medical encounters.
designCross-sectional descriptive study.
settingIsala teaching hospital in Zwolle, the Netherlands.
participants94 consultations by 27 consultants, video recorded in 2018 and 2019.
main outcome measuresPhysicians' verbal interruptions during patients' opening statements, rate of completion of patients' opening statements, time to first interruption and the effect of gender, age and physician specialty on the rate and type of physicians' verbal interruptions.
resultsPatients were interrupted a median of 9 times per minute during their opening statement, the median time to the first interruption was 6.5 s. Most interruptions (67%) were backchannels (such as 'hm hm' or 'go on'), considered to be encouraging the patient to continue. In 52 consultations (55%), patients could not finish their opening statement due to a floor changing interruption by the consultant. The median time to such an interruption was 31.4 s, on average 20 s shorter than a finished opening statement (p=0.004). Female consultants used more backchannels (median 9, IQR 5-12) than male consultants (median 7, IQR 2-11, p=0.028).
conclusionsHospital-based consultants use various ways to interrupt patients during their opening statements. Most of these interruptions are encouraging backchannels. Still, consultants change the conversational floor in more than half of their patients during their opening statements after a median of 31 s.
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