4

Doctor–patient

communication

and the role

of health

professionals’

health beliefs

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

This chapter first examines the problem of compliance and

then describes Ley’s (1981, 1989) cognitive hypothesis

model of communication, which emphasizes patient

understanding, recall and satisfaction. This educational

perspective explains communication in terms of the transfer

of knowledge from medical expert to layperson. Such models

of the transfer of expert knowledge assume that the health

professionals behave according to their education and

training, not their subjective beliefs. The chapter then looks at

the role of information in terms of determining compliance

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