Lucija Murgić

How to deal with a crying patient? A study from a primary care setting in Croatia, using the ‘critical incident technique’

Abstract Background: Expression of strong emotions by patients is not a rare event in medical practice, however, there are few studies describing general practitioner (GP) communication with a crying patient. Objective: The aim of this study was to describe GP behaviour with a patient who cries in a family practice setting. Methods: A semi-qualitative study was conducted on 127 Croatian GP trainees, 83.5% female, and 16.5% male. The study method used was the ‘critical incident technique.’ GP trainees described their recent experience with patients who cried in front of them. Textual data were explored inductively using content analysis to generate categories and explanations. Results: All 127 (100.0%) GP trainees initially let patients cry, giving them verbal (81.9%) and/or nonverbal support (25.9%). GP trainees (69.3%) encouraged their patients to verbalize and to describe the problem. Most GP trainees (87.4%) tried to establish mutual problem understanding. Approximately half of the GP trainees (55.1%) made a joint management plan. A minor group (14.2%) tried to maintain contact with the patient by arranging follow-up appointments. The vast majority of GP trainees shared their patients emotion of sadness (92.9%). Some GP trainees were caught unaware or unprepared for patients crying and reacted awkwardly (4.7%), some were indifferent (3.9%) or even felt guilty (3.1%). Conclusion: GP trainees’ patterns of communication with crying patients can be described in five steps: (a) let the patient cry; (b) verbalization of emotions and facilitation to express the problem; (c) mutual understanding and solution finding; (d) evaluation—maintaining contact; and (e) personal experience of great emotional effort.

A time-trend analysis of intended career choice for family medicine among croatian medical students

Abstract Aim: To gain insight into the trend of career choice for family medicine in Croatia in recent years. Methods: Six surveys were performed in the academic years 2006/07-2011/12 at the University of Zagreb, School of Medicine. Altogether, 1140 6th year students participated. They anonymously completed a questionnaire containing questions on desired future specialisation as well as other selected characteristics (e.g. gender, desired area and place of work, motivation to study medicine, etc.). Binary logistic regression was used to determine unadjusted and adjusted trends. Results: After adjustment for selected factors, the relationship between observed outcome and the year of observation showed an evident decreasing trend. The odds for intention to specialise in family medicine were in the academic year 2006/2007 1.43-times higher than in the year 2007/2008 (p=0.412), 1.85-times higher than in the year 2008/2009 (p=0.168), 2.38-times higher than in the year 2009/2010 (p=0.051), 2.63-times higher than in the year 2010/2011 (p=0.027) and 3.85-times higher than in the year 2011/2012 (p=0.003). Conclusions: The results of the present study offer evidence that Croatia is experiencing a constantly decreasing trend of career choice for family medicine in recent years. It is obvious that final year medical students are not very much interested in working as family practitioners. At the same time, demand for family practitioners in Croatia is increasing. Both academic and professional societies have a social responsibility to reorient the health care system and medical curricula towards comprehensive primary health care in which family medicine has a key role. Izvleček Izhodišče: Pridobitev vpogleda v trend izbire poklica zdravnik specialist družinske medicine na Hrvaškem v zadnjih letih. Metode: V študijskih letih 2006/7-2011/12 je bilo na Medicinski fakulteti Univerze v Zagrebu opravljenih šest raziskav, v katerih je skupaj sodelovalo 1.140 študentov 6. letnika. Ti so anonimno izpolnili vprašalnik z vprašanji o želeni prihodnji specializaciji in drugih izbranih karakteristikah (npr. spol, želeno področje in kraj dela, motivi za študij medicine itn.). Za določitev neprilagojenih in prilagojenih trendov je bila uporabljena binarna logistična regresija. Rezultati: Po prilagoditvi izbranih dejavnikov je bil pri povezavi med opazovanim rezultatom in letom opazovanja ugotovljen jasen padajoči trend. Verjetnost izbire specializacije iz družinske medicine je bila v študijskem letu 2006/2007 1,43-krat večja kot v letu 2007/2008 (p = 0,412), 1,85-krat večja kot v letu 2008/2009 (p = 0,168), 2,38- krat večja kot v letu 2009/2010 (p = 0,051), 2,63-krat večja kot v letu 2010/2011 (p = 0,027) in 3,85-krat večja kot v letu 2011/2012 (p = 0,003). Zaključki: Rezultati te raziskave dokazujejo, da je v zadnjih letih na Hrvaškem prisoten stalno padajoči trend pri izbiri poklica zdravnik specialist družinske medicine. Očitno je, da študenti zadnjega letnika medicine niso preveč zainteresirani za delo zdravnika družinske medicine. Hkrati pa se na Hrvaškem povečuje potreba po tovrstnih zdravnikih. Tako akademska kot strokovna združenja so družbeno odgovorna za preoblikovanje sistema zdravstvenega varstva in študijskih programov medicine v celovito primarno zdravstveno varstvo, v katerem ima družinska medicina ključno vlogo.