Dimensions of health professionals-patient interaction.

Health-professional-patient interaction determines the ethical, technical and behavioural aspects of medical care. Modern approaches to medical and health services focus on patients' expectations and satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to determine the main dimensions of relationships between health professionals (doctors and nurses) and elderly patients. Patients, older than 65 years, admitted to a university hospital in the first three months of 1996, comprise the study population. With probability sampling procedures, research data were obtained from 135 patients, discharged from the university hospital, via a questionnaire method. The questionnaire used in this study has 23 items. Reliability and validity of the questionnaire were tested before actual application. To determine the main dimensions of health professional-patient interaction, factor analysis, a multivariate statistical analysis, was performed. The factor analysis extracted three factors describing the dimensions of health-professional patient interactions. The first two factors included the behavioural side of interaction (physician's behaviour and nurse's behaviour).