Treating Patients As People: What Do Hospital Patients Want Clinicians to Know About Them As a Person?

Background:There is little understanding or focus on the patient’s personal communicative perspective during their experience of clinical treatment. An exploratory study and a follow-up study were conducted at a large safety net hospital to determine whether and what patients wanted clinicians to know more about them as a person.Study Design:A convenience sample of 230 patients was selected from 9 different clinical units within the hospital for exploratory interviews to determine whether patients wanted their clinical team to know about them as a person. Based on these findings, additional personal preference data of patients were collected from a census sample of 387 patients selected from 2 intensive care unit units and 2 medical–surgical units.Findings:The majority of patients in the exploratory study reported they wanted to tell their doctors/nurses some personal information about themselves, thought doctors/nurses could provide better care to them if they knew more about them as a person, and that c...