Topic One (1.1): Practitioner and Patient Interpersonal Skills

Introduction

A lot of psychology is conducted in real-world environments and examines interactions between individuals and that setting. In this topic you will learn about how the relationships between people and healthcare professionals determine whether someone adheres to medical advice. In any medical consultation, interpersonal skills are displayed by both the patient and the practitioner. For individuals to get the most out of such interactions they need to be able to communicate clearly and to have some faith in their practitioners. You will also explore verbal/non-verbal communications.

For the exam you need to know:

  • Non-verbal communications with a focus on practitioner clothing, including a study, e.g. McKinstry and Wang (1991).
  • Verbal communications with a focus on understanding medical terminology, including a study, e.g. McKinlay (1975).

Relevant issues and debates and methodology for this topic include: idiographic versus nomothetic, experiments, questionnaires, quantitative data, generalisations from findings.

Read and Make Notes

  • Read and make notes on pages 304 to 308 in the textbook.
  • Read the original study by McKinstry and Wang (1991) on ‘non-verbal communications’.

Download READ – McKinstry and Wang (1991) Original Research Paper (PDF)

Watch

Watch the following video:

WATCH – Non-Verbal Types of Communication (YouTube) Links to an external site.

Read and Make Notes

Now read through the following resource and add to your notes:

READ – What is the Importance of Communication in Healthcare? (Regis College) Links to an external site.

Reflect

Review your notes on Issues and Debates from Modules Two and Nine of the AS course (if you studied AS for exams in 2024 onwards) or Module Two (if you studied for AS exams in 2023) and continue to review the ideas as you progress through each part of the course. Think about how you could use these arguments to evaluate studies/theories.

Terminology

Make sure you understand all the key terms covered in this topic. You may like to make flashcards of key terms now, to help you with revision later on.