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- Advising a patient with a genetic cardiovascular disorder to follow up with a
cardiovascular specialist - Recommending psychological counseling for a patient with obvious signs of
mental health issues (e.g., clinical depression)
7.1.2 Strategies for Communicating Information
Skillful provision of information requires practice and self-reflection. Below are
some strategies for effectively providing information:
- Be organized. Prepare your information in advance. Gather relevant information
and arrange it in a clear order. Think about what might happen in the session that
would impact your plans for providing information (e.g., the patient becomes
extremely emotional; the patient brings family or friends to the appointment; the
patient is physically ill due to treatment). - Have a good understanding of the information yourself. Before meeting with
your patient, be sure you comprehend complicated medical details, risk for dis-
ease and symptoms, cost of testing, etc., and have thought through how you will
explain this information. Practice saying the information and record yourself
while doing so. Play back the recording and listen as if you were the patient.
Modify accordingly. - Do not follow a “cookbook” approach. In Chap. 6 we discussed the value of
preparing a “checklist” of topics you want to be sure to cover in a session. You
should, however, avoid writing out a detailed script that you follow more or less
verbatim with every patient. The same recipe will not work for all individuals.
Instead, tailor how you present the information to each patient and her or his situ-
ation. Over time and with supervised experience, you will find yourself gradually
working more extemporaneously as you assess how a given patient is responding
to your presentation of information. - Use terminology patients will understand. Present information in a language
your patients can understand, and remember that this will not be the same for
everyone. Some patients will have more science literacy and will understand
technical terminology, but most will not. Use analogies that are familiar to
patients to convey complicated information (e.g., genes as blueprints, chromo-
somes as books). - Give an appropriate amount of information. Initially, you may feel comfortable
using elaborate drawings and providing extensive information. Although visual
aids can be very effective (Garcia-Retamerol and Cokely 2013 ), they may dimin-
ish your ability to attend to patients’ nonverbals, may confuse patients whose
primary mode of learning is not visual, and may make your presentation seem
overly “scripted.” Trepanier ( 2012 ) describes a case in which she focused a bit
7 Providing Information and Facilitating Patient Decision-Making