Research on the value of communication of person-centered care outcomes.

When entering a consulting room a person becomes a patient with double needs, i.e. the need to feel known and understood and the need to know and understand, also referred to as affective and instrumental needs, respectively. The fulfilment of these needs highly depends on the communication skills of both doctor and patient which help to bridge the inherent distance that exists between these two persons. There is ample evidence that this bridge becomes stronger the more the communication is tailored to the person behind the patient. Research shows that this so called tailored communication contributes to patient outcome known to be crucial for recovery and quality of life, i.e. recall, medication compliance, self-management, reassurance and need fulfilment. Being a natural skill, communication is at the same time easy and difficult to adjust to circumstances and patient characteristics. Easy because communication is a tool that is generally always present, difficult because most persons usually do not communicate in a conscious way. My presentation aims to provide evidence for the value of tailored communication for patient outcome as well as give a case example of how to communicate in a purposeful way while at the same time respecting patients’ values and feelings