Independence of Coping Styles With the Patient-Doctor Relationship and Shared Decision-Making in People With Parkinson's Disease

Determinants of coping styles of people with Parkinson's Disease

Little is known about how people with Parkinson's disease (PD) cope with stressful life events. We examined the determinants of specific coping strategies and whether specific choices have any impact on quality of life (QoL). We recruited patients with PD who had been seen at a neurology outpatient clinic at least once during the past year as part of the PRIME-NL cohort study. Coping was measured using the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ) and QoL was measured using the Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39). 977 out of 988 participants completed the questionnaires and 935 participants were diagnosed with PD. Factor analysis was undertaken to test if ways of coping were similar or different to previous findings in a PD population. We used linear regression analyses to examine predictors of coping styles. We then used multivariable linear regression to test how coping style was associated with the domains of QoL conditional on potential confounders. The five coping styles identified by the factor analysis were: "taking action and emphasizing the positive", "distancing and fantasizing", "goal oriented and planful problem solving", "seeking social support" and "avoidance and acceptance". Age, gender, education and anxiety were associated with the type of coping strategy. For example, higher education was associated with more active coping strategies (e.g. β = 4.39, p < 0.001 for goal oriented). Conditional on other confounders, most coping strategies had little effect on QoL domains. These findings demonstrate that coping behavior of people with PD is influenced by psychological status and personal traits. However, there was only a modest effect of coping behavior on QoL. Future research needs to test whether the enhancement or discouragement of certain coping strategies is feasible and can enhance QoL.

Does de-implementation of low-value care impact the patient-clinician relationship? A mixed methods study

Background

The importance of reducing low-value care (LVC) is increasingly recognized, but the impact of de-implementation on the patient-clinician relationship is not well understood. This mixed-methods study explored the impact of LVC de-implementation on the patient-clinician relationship.

Methods

Adult primary care patients from a large Virginia health system volunteered to participate in a survey (n = 232) or interview (n = 24). Participants completed the Patient-Doctor Relationship Questionnaire (PDRQ-9) after reading a vignette about a clinician declining to provide a low-value service: antibiotics for acute sinusitis (LVC-antibiotics); screening EKG (LVC-EKG); screening vitamin D test (LVC-vitamin D); or an alternate vignette about a high-value service, and imagining that their own primary care clinician had acted in the same manner. A different sample of participants was asked to imagine that their own primary care clinician did not order LVC-antibiotics or LVC-EKG and then respond to semi-structured interview questions. Outcomes data included participant demographics, PDRQ-9 scores (higher score = greater relationship integrity), and content analysis of transcribed interviews. Differences in PDRQ-9 scores were analyzed using one-way ANOVA. Data were integrated for analysis and interpretation.

Results

Although participants generally agreed with the vignette narrative (not providing LVC), many demonstrated difficulty comprehending the broad concept of LVC and potential harms. The topic triggered memories of negative experiences with healthcare (typically poor-quality care, not necessarily LVC). The most common recommendation for reducing LVC was for patients to take greater responsibility for their own health. Most participants believed that their relationship with their clinician would not be negatively impacted by denial of LVC because they trusted their clinician’s guidance. Participants emphasized that trusted clinicians are those who listen to them, spend time with them, and offer understandable advice. Some felt that not providing LVC would actually increase their trust in their clinician. Similar PDRQ-9 scores were observed for LVC-antibiotics (38.9), LVC-EKG (37.5), and the alternate vignette (36.4), but LVC-vitamin D was associated with a significantly lower score (31.2) (p < 0.05).

Conclusions

In this vignette-based study, we observed minimal impact of LVC de-implementation on the patient-clinician relationship, although service-specific differences surfaced. Further situation-based research is needed to confirm study findings.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-021-07345-9.