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Hospital consultants’ views of their patients
Author(s) -
Britten Nicky
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
sociology of health and illness
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1467-9566
pISSN - 0141-9889
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9566.ep11340325
Subject(s) - psychosocial , medical record , sample (material) , family medicine , psychology , nursing , medicine , psychiatry , surgery , chemistry , chromatography
A sample of 24 hospital consultants was interviewed and asked for their opinions about a proposed policy of patient access to their own general practice records. Tape recordings of 20 recorded interviews were analysed in order to obtain data about consultants’ views of their patients. Consultants were divided into two main groups: those opposed to and those in favour of the proposed policy. Three factors were identified which discriminated between the views of the two groups of consultants: whether or not patients were perceived as being competent to take an active and informed part in the consultation; patients’ access to the truth; and the fallibility of medicine. It is suggested that consultants’ views about patients and patient access to medical records were related to their underlying model of illness: consultants opposed to access held a biomedical model of illness whereas those in favour of access held a more psychosocial model of illness.