Prostate cancer affects men and their loved ones; consequently, survivors and their wives can gain from social support throughout the illness experience. After observing meetings of a support group for prostate cancer survivors and their partners, the authors used the constant comparison method to draw conclusions about the types of support generated in the men's and women's divisions of the group. The authors concluded that both divisions served as sites of information but not as scenes of practical assistance. The authors also found that the discursive practices of the groups and the structural elements of the group meetings inhibited emotional support through topic turning, comparisons between members, and the role of group facilitators. The authors consider the study's implications for support group leaders and scholars.
The purpose of this study was to examine the relations among patients' perceptions of their physicians' communicative behavior during the informed consent interview, the patient's feeling of being confirmed by the physician and satisfied with care delivered by the physician, and the patient's decision to participate in a clinical trial or not. Respondents included 130 cancer patients who were eligible for a clinical trial and who had recently discussed trial participation with their physicians. Results indicated that a linear combination of the variables physician affiliative style, physician dominant or controlling style, patient satisfaction, patient confirmation, patient preference for decision making, patient desire for information, and patient age discriminate between patients who agree to participate in clinical trials and patients who refuse to participate. Physicians' affiliative communicative behaviors and patient satisfaction were clearly important to patients who agreed to participate. Motivations for patients who declined to participate in trials were less clear. Implications for physicians who offer clinical trials to their patients are that specific communication skills may enhance their patients' satisfaction and may help increase enrollment in clinical trials.
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