Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA.
Patient Educ Couns. 2011 Sep;84(3):319-24. doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2011.03.006. Epub 2011 May 17.
A relatively unexplored aspect of clinicians' communication skill is their interpersonal sensitivity, or ability to perceive their patients accurately with regard to patients' feelings, desires, intentions, needs, physical states, personality, attitudes, beliefs, and values. The present article argues for the importance of this skill in clinical interactions and summarizes supportive research.
Reviews approaches to measuring interpersonal sensitivity and research on correlates of clinicians' and laypersons' interpersonal sensitivity.
Studies on clinicians' interpersonal sensitivity suggest that this skill could be improved. Furthermore, there are important correlates of clinicians' interpersonal sensitivity, including, on the patient's side, satisfaction, appointment-keeping adherence, and learning of conveyed information, and, on the clinician's side, awareness of patients' cues of anxiety and distress, commitment to patient-centered values, self-reported awareness of own emotions, and female gender. Furthermore, a very large non-clinical literature points to many other correlates of interpersonal sensitivity that are relevant to the clinical situation, including empathy, prosocial behavior, skill in negotiating, selling, teaching, and managing, better personal adjustment, and better interpersonal relationships. Research also suggests that interpersonal sensitivity is a trainable skill that could realistically be included in clinical education.
Clinicians' interpersonal sensitivity is an important component of quality of care and deserves further research.
This important skill should be incorporated into training programs to improve clinician-patient communication.
临床医生沟通技巧中一个相对未被探索的方面是他们的人际敏感性，或者说他们能够准确地感知患者的感受、欲望、意图、需求、身体状况、个性、态度、信念和价值观的能力。本文认为这种技能在临床互动中很重要，并总结了支持性研究。
综述了衡量人际敏感性的方法以及关于临床医生和非临床人员人际敏感性的相关性研究。
对临床医生人际敏感性的研究表明，这项技能可以得到提高。此外，临床医生人际敏感性有重要的相关性，包括患者方面的满意度、遵医嘱性和所传达信息的学习，以及临床医生方面的对患者焦虑和痛苦线索的觉察、对以患者为中心价值观的承诺、自我报告的情绪觉察以及女性性别。此外，大量非临床文献指出了许多与临床情况相关的人际敏感性的其他相关性，包括同理心、亲社会行为、协商、销售、教学和管理技能、更好的个人适应和更好的人际关系。研究还表明，人际敏感性是一种可训练的技能，可以实际纳入临床教育。
临床医生的人际敏感性是护理质量的一个重要组成部分，值得进一步研究。
这项重要技能应纳入培训计划，以改善医患沟通。
