  Strategies for Effective Information Provision
Communicating with patients, their families and their friends is both an important and sometimes difficult task. This may be because of a difference in medical understanding; ethical or moral perceptions; or an impaired mental state arising from health problems. The strategies outlined in this fast fact sheet are aimed at overcoming this information barrier.
This fast fact sheet would be useful to a broad range of clinical staff - anyone who has to brief cancer patients about potentially disturbing information. Additionally, it could be given to patients to assist them in comprehending and better understanding the vast amount of information they are being told.
Issues included in the fast fact sheet:
- Explaining medical terminology;
- Checking patient understanding;
- Giving patient-specific information (as opposed to general clinical information);
- Reassuring the patient whilst conveying this knowledge; etc.
This fact sheet is sourced from Ausmed Publications' textbook: 'Psychosocial Care of Cancer Patients: A health professional's guide to what to say and do', editors Dr Jemma Gilchrist & Dr Katharine Hodgkinson, (2008) chapter four: 'How to build relationships with good communication', author Phyllis Butow& Dr Jemma Gilchrist.
Author: Phyllis Butow
Phyllis Butow has worked for over 20 years in the area of psycho-oncology and has developed an international reputation in this and the area of health communication. She is currently professor and NHMRC principal research fellow in the School of Psychology, University of Sydney. She directs the Medical Psychology Research Unit and chairs the Australian Psycho-Oncology Co-operative Trials Group. She chairs the Communication Skills Advisory Group of the National Breast Cancer Centre and has taken a leading role in Australia in promoting and facilitating communication skills training for oncology health professionals. Much of her research concerns the impact of communication strategies on doctor and patient outcomes, and this has been translated into a number of communication skills modules for cancer health professionals. She has over 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals, most of which relate to psychological issues in cancer.
Author: Dr Jemma Gilchrist
Jemma Gilchrist is a senior clinical psychologist with clinical experience in psycho-oncology. Since 1999 she has worked in two separate tertiary oncology services providing psychosocial care to adults with a wide range of cancer diagnoses as well as their families and carers. Jemma has experience in educating other health professionals on the role of psychosocial support and interventions in the oncology setting. In addition she is an honorary associate of the University of Sydney and provides clinical supervision to clinical psychology interns at master's level. She completed her doctorate in 1995 in the area of children's eyewitness memory, and has published in the areas of interviewing children about stressful events, the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome and postnatal depression. She has longstanding interest in the impact and treatment of anxiety in the medically unwell.
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