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Improving Communication Effectiveness in Oncology: The Role of Emotions

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New Challenges in Communication with Cancer Patients

Abstract

Through communication, physicians disclose to their interlocutors (who become patients) the course of their disease (with the diagnosis), and again through communication doctors announce the recovery from disease, or its progression, or the helplessness of medicine in coping with it. Communication in medicine has, then, very strong ethical and personal implications that inevitably include personal interpretations of life and suffering, as well as the establishment of a genuine doctor–patient relationship and listening to and recognizing the patients’ and one’s own emotions. Emotions represent an important aspect of the communicative task of physicians. In the present chapter (1) we will introduce the doctor–patient relationship as an element intrinsic to communication and its emotional aspects; (2) we will describe the principal emotions of patients along the disease course, as this is marked by various medical communications; (3) we will then focus on the subject of physicians’ emotions, and (4) list the principal strategies and resources that emotions (both doctors’ and patients’) will or should stimulate in physicians themselves. Increasing communication efficacy, improving the doctor–patient relationship, and adherence to therapy, as well as reaching greater well-being both in patients and in healthcare providers are the principal reasons that should encourage physicians to focus on this communicative-relational element and to look for occasions for specific training.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro Di Riferimento Oncologico Aviano, National Cancer Institute, Unit of Oncological Phsychology, Aviano, PN, Italy

    Maria Antonietta Annunziata & Barbara Muzzatti

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  1. Maria Antonietta Annunziata
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  2. Barbara Muzzatti
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Correspondence to Maria Antonietta Annunziata .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Medicine, New York University Medical School, First Avenue 530, New York, 10016, USA

    Antonella Surbone

  2. Institute of Oncology, Zaloška 2, Ljubljana, 1000, Slovenia

    Matjaž Zwitter

  3. Institute of Oncology, Zaloška 2, Ljubljana, 1000, Ljubljana-Center, Slovenia

    Mirjana Rajer

  4. 38th Street 2838, Astoria, 11103, New York, USA

    Richard Stiefel

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Annunziata, M.A., Muzzatti, B. (2013). Improving Communication Effectiveness in Oncology: The Role of Emotions. In: Surbone, A., Zwitter, M., Rajer, M., Stiefel, R. (eds) New Challenges in Communication with Cancer Patients. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3369-9_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3369-9_20

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-3368-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-3369-9

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