Communication with Physicians

When you visit your doctor, how often do you do the following? Please circle one number for each question.

	Never	Almost Never	Sometimes	Fairly Often	Very Often	Always
1. Prepare a list of questions for your doctor?	0	1	2	3	4	5
2. Ask questions about the things you want to know about and the things you don't understand about your treatment?	0	1	2	3	4	5
3. Discuss any personal problems that may be related to your illness.	0	1	2	3	4	5

Scoring

Score each item as the number circled. If more than one consecutive number is circled, code the lower number (less communication). If the numbers are not consecutive, do not score the item. The score is the mean of the three items. If more than one is missing, set the value of the score for the scale to missing. A higher score indicates better communication with physicians.

Characteristics

Tested on 1,130 participants

No. of items	Observed Range	Mean	Standard Deviation	Internal Consistency Reliability	Test-Retest Reliability
3	0-5	3.08	1.20	.73	.89

Source of Psychometric Data

Stanford Chronic Disease Self-Management Study. Psychometrics reported in: Lorig K, Stewart A, Ritter P, González V, Laurent D, & Lynch J, Outcome Measures for Health Education and other Health Care Interventions. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, 1996, pp.24,40.

Comments

This scale was developed to see if the key behaviors we teach concerning communicating with health care providers have changed. This scale available in Spanish.

References

Lorig K, Stewart A, Ritter P, González V, Laurent D, & Lynch J, Outcome Measures for Health Education and other Health Care Interventions. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications, 1996, pp.24,40.

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