Do communication training and patient education improve the conversation about treatment restrictions?

Timely discussing treatment restrictions with patients is important in order to prevent difficult situations at, for example, the emergency department. Nowadays, patients are often uninformed about the possibilities and consequences of resuscitation, mechanical ventilation and intensive care admission. This makes it hard or even impossible to decide about whether these interventions should be performed whenever they become necessary, especially in an urgent medical situation. Doctors, however, find it difficult to discuss potential treatment restrictions with patients. We hypothesize that routinely discussing potential treatment restrictions with patients at the outpatient clinic, in a less stressful environment with their ‘own’ physician, leads to better informed patients, more patient and doctor satisfaction about this conversation and more shared decision-making. Furthermore, it is important to gain more insight in the role of gender differences in communication style regarding the discussion on potential treatment restrictions.

We hypothesize that a conversation aid and information brochure for patients, and a communication training for physicians improves satisfaction and quality of the discussion about potential treatment restrictions at the internal medicine outpatient department. Moreover, our hypothesis is that gender differences in communication style play a role in this association.

Patients and physicians will receive a questionnaire about the consultation at the outpatient department immediately after the consultation.

Patients will receive a digital information brochure and conversational aid. Doctors will be trained with simulated patients and an e-learning module.