: The overarching goal of this proposal is to provide the candidate with the means, mentorship and structure to transition to an independent investigator focused on examining and improving communication between female patients and their health care providers. She is Assistant Professor in Ob-Gyn with fellowship training in health services research. Many conditions treated by obstetricians-gynecologists deal with sensitive social and behavioral issues that necessitate patient disclosure and the provision of information and advice. The candidate's interest in patient-provider communication represents a shift in research focus and a natural extension of her previous work on health care screening and interventions for intimate partner violence (IPV). Using IPV as an example of a challenging topic faced by women's health care providers, she intends to understand what components of patient-provider communication in IPV are associated with increased patient disclosure, comfort and motivation to seek help. She intends to design a communication intervention to improve provider IPV discussions and health and safety outcomes for affected women.
Aims of the research project are: 1) to describe the content and style of patient-provider communication regarding intimate partner violence during the initial obstetric visit;2) to describe association between communication and IPV disclosure;3) to describe the patients'perspectives on the discussion including how it affected their intentions to attempt to change their situations to increase their safety;and 4) to develop a provider communication intervention on how to ask and counsel about IPV. The candidate's career development plan incorporates coursework, tutorials with methodological and topic experts, conferences, and mentored research to meet her educational objectives: 1) to acquire knowledge and skills to assess patient-provider communication;2) to learn how to develop and implement interventions to improve patient-provider communication;and 3) to enhance understanding in measuring outcomes of communication intervention.
