Communication between Patients and Nurses, Midwives and Doctors Using Focus Group Discussions

Background: In the everyday understanding of communication between patients and health professionals, emphasis should be on effective communication in providing effective health care. This, therefore, leads to a special relationship in the health setting. The nature of the relationship depends on how the two parties understand the communication sequence. Communication skills training has been found to improve doctor-patient communication. Some methods used in studying doctor-patient communication are self-report measures, interviews, observational studies, randomised controlled studies, and focus group discussions.

Researchers have defined focus group discussions (FGDs) as a procedure used in gathering data moderated by a researcher, and it is usually focused on ideas, knowledge, and thinking of participants. In Ghana, nurses, midwives, and doctors do not provide information to patients on their diseases. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore Tamale Teaching Hospital nurses, midwives, and doctors’ descriptions of the information needs of Tamale Teaching Hospital patients.

Methods: The design was semi-structured discussions with three groups. A convenient sample of doctors and a random sample of nurses and midwives from Tamale Teaching Hospital were participants. The researcher (MA) developed questions, which were used in stimulating the focus group discussions. MA facilitated the discussions and the research assistant (AAM) took notes and did the tape recording. To ensure reliable results, there was involvement of colleagues who had good knowledge of FG methods and participants for their viewpoints and confirmation. Excel database was used in the compilation, analyses, and syntheses. Data were collected in May 2013.

Results: The results of the FG discussion showed that the name/nature of proposed treatment, the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed treatment, alternative treatment procedures, advantages and disadvantages of alternative treatment were of concern to patients and needs special attention.

Conclusions: These findings are consistent with earlier studies that patients were not given adequate information on their diseases. The findings from this study showed that patients in Tamale Teaching Hospital need a lot more information on their treatment.