A questionnaire for patients’ evaluations of their physicians’ humanistic behaviors

Abstract

Patients can evaluate the humanistic behaviors of their physicians using the PHBQ. There is good correlation between the PHBQ and patient satisfaction, which supports the validity of the PHBQ. The relative lack of agreement between patients and attending physicians suggests different observations, criteria, or standards. The higher ratings from patients in the clinic compared with those from patients in the hospital suggest that residents' behaviors are different or that patients have different observations, criteria, or standards in the two settings. Therefore, a complete assessment of residents' humanistic behaviors may require sampling in both settings.

Improving in-training evaluation programs

“…Finally, professional and interpersonal behaviors can be best evaluated through in-training assessment as residents relate to patients, allied health professionals, and colleagues. 1,[13][14][15][16][17] …”

“…11,12 Increasingly, however, the use of other observers, particularly nurses, 1,13,14 has been suggested to be of value, particularly in the assessment of communication skills, ethical behaviors, reliability, and integrity. [15][16][17] Peer and resident assessments remain primarily research tools at the present but will likely be useful in future evaluation. 3,18 Patients have also been shown to provide valuable information pertaining to resident performance.…”

Guidelines for promotion of clinician-educators

“…38 Evaluation of this type of scholarship is as necessary as any other. [38][39][40][41] Also, a variety of clinical practice areas can be assessed with reliable and valid instruments, including clinical knowledge [40][41][42][43][44][45][46] and humanistic behavior. 39,47,48 Although instruments for assessing technical skills are lacking, development of new operating techniques or ways to expedite existing techniques should be considered.…”

Eliciting the impact of digital consulting for young people living with long term conditions (LYNC study): which Patient Reported Outcome Measure? (Preprint)

“…Three candidate PROMs, fit for purpose for eliciting patient outcomes targeted by digital consulting and, suitable for use across multiple long term conditions, were endorsed by the patient involvement group: the Patient Activation Measure (PAM-22) (13), the Patient Activation Measure Short Form (PAM 13) (14): and the Physician's Humanistic Behaviours Questionnaire (PHBQ) (15). The 13 items of the short form PAM 13 are contained within the 22 items of the PAM 22.…”

“…The PAM 13 and 22 are proprietorial PROMS which can limit access. The aim of the PHBQ instrument development was to understand what physician humanistic behaviours, performed (or not) in the physician-patient interaction, were important to patients and to develop a measure to assess for these behaviours in different health care contexts (15). No further evaluations of the PHBQ full scale were identified although a number of investigators have used items from the PHBQ in new outcome measures or used the PHBQ as a bench mark for convergent validity when developing new measures (28)(29)(30).…”