Nonverbal sensitivity in medical students: implications for clinical interactions.

Background: Clinicians' accuracy in perceiving nonverbal cues has potentially important consequences, but has received insufficient research.

Objective: To examine the relation of medical students' nonverbal sensitivity to their gender and personal traits, as well as to their communication and impressions made during a standardized patient (SP) visit.

Design: Psychometric testing, questionnaire, and observation.

Is it good to express uncertainty to a patient? Correlates and consequences for medical students in a standardized patient visit.

Objective: To examine the consequences of expressions of uncertainty (EOUs) in medical student interactions, with a particular focus on the gender of the expressor.

Methods: EOUs were identified in 147 videotaped interactions between third-year medical students and standardized patients enacting four medical scenarios. The encounters were also analyzed using the Roter Interaction Analysis System (RIAS).

Observer-rated rapport in interactions between medical students and standardized patients.

Objective: To measure rapport between medical students and standardized patients using observer ratings; to relate these ratings to students' emotional awareness and to behavior within the medical interaction; and to assess the relative validity of using excerpts of different lengths for the measurement of rapport.

Methods: Third-year medical students (N=141) were videotaped during a 15-min interaction with a standardized patient, and rapport as well as other communication variables were measured using trained coders. Rapport was measured with good interrater reliability by trained coders who viewed three 1-min excerpts.

A randomized controlled trial of an intervention to reduce low literacy barriers in inflammatory arthritis management.

Objective: Test the efficacy of educational interventions to reduce literacy barriers and enhance health outcomes among patients with inflammatory arthritis.

Methods: The intervention consisted of plain language information materials and/or two individualized sessions with an arthritis educator. Randomization was stratified by education level.

Predictors of refusal during a multi-step recruitment process for a randomized controlled trial of arthritis education.

Objective: Randomized controlled trials in patient education often have difficulty enrolling vulnerable populations-specifically, older, poorer, and less educated individuals. We undertook a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of an educational intervention for arthritis management, which included strategies to remove literacy-related barriers to participation. This paper reports on the multi-stage recruitment process and assesses whether refusal to participate was related to education, age, gender, working status, or insurance status.