An assessment of Portuguese health service patients' perceptions of whether physicians' age and gender affect their willingness to communicate with patients

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the impact of physicians' age and gender on their predisposition to communication, from the perspective of patients with atopic dermatitis. Two studies were carried out. The qualitative study followed the logic of interpretivism with collective interviews with a sample of 19 people with atopic dermatitis living in the metropolitan areas of Lisbon and Porto; the quantitative study focused on the positivist perspective with the development of questionnaire surveys with a sample of 144 people with atopic dermatitis living throughout the country. The results obtained in the qualitative study point to a non-conscious influence of the variables being analyzed by the sample studied. In particular, 63 per cent and 53 per cent of those interviewed considered that the physician's gender and age (respectively) had no influence on their willingness to communicate with the patient. However, in the quantitative study, the results point to a statistically significant relationship between: a) age and gender, b) gender and physicians' communication. No statistically significant relationship was found between age (regardless of gender) and predisposition to communicate. In other words, the older the female physicians, the more they are perceived as being more willing to communicate with the patient. Male physicians, regardless of age, performed well in fewer dimensions of communication: they are more willing to answer questions, more willing to explain the tests and treatments they prescribe, and more concerned about explaining therapeutic indications several times. The older the male physician, the more he uses easy-to-understand language and the less concerned he is about keeping to the consultation time. While female physicians stand out for being more open to questions, more willing to attend to patients and being more friendly, male physicians stand out for their clinical knowledge as the characteristic that patients most appreciate.