Communicating Deployment-Related Health Concerns to Patients

One of the more commonly addressed issues of patient-clinician interaction is the skill with which physicians communicate bad news to patients. Probably more common for most physicians, however, is the need to effectively convey reassuring information when the available medical evaluation suggests the absence of a catastrophic or rapidly progressive problem. This process is known as risk communication. It is the science of communicating information about risk under circumstances involving some combination of low trust, high concern, perceived crisis, or differential interpersonal power.

Nearly all clinicians regularly encounter patients under conditions of high concern, low trust, perceived crisis or differential interpersonal power. Clinicians can learn to improve their capacity for effective doctor-patient communication about risk, disease, and prognosis from the burgeoning literature on risk communication.

We've gathered a few documents that we hope will help you learn how to effectively communicate deployment-related health concerns to patients. The guidance is offered in several different formats (Microsoft Word and Adobe Portable Document Format or PDF) so you can choose the one most useful for your situation. Please consult our Help & FAQs page if you encounter any problems with these downloads.

• Risk Communication for Clinicians. This briefing covers the use of risk communication principles in a clinical setting to improve communication between health care providers and patients, especially in situations involving patients with high levels of concern and low trust. The briefing defines risk communication, explains how it can improve clinical care, and offers tools to help clinicians communicate more effectively.
  
  [PPT 1.00MB]
  
  
• Clinical Risk Communication: Explaining Causality to Gulf War Veterans with Chronic Multisymptom Illnesses. LTC (Dr.) Charles Engel of the Department of Defense's Deployment Health Clinical Center introduces the topic of clinical risk communication. He uses a basic illustrative model that borrows from signal theory. The approach should help clinicians develop an increased sensitivity to the ways that patients decide about risk.
  
  [DOC 144KB]  [PDF 77KB]
  
  
• Tips When Caring for Soldiers with Deployment-Related Health Concerns. Using a role-playing approach, this paper explores the first and second line considerations for a clinician when a patient thinks he may have a deployment-related condition.
  
  [DOC 43KB]  [PDF 23KB]
  
  
• When the Doctor and Patient Don't See Eye to Eye. Learn how to handle the struggle that develops between the patient and the clinician when the patient is feeling uncertain and anxious.
  
  [DOC 43KB]  [PDF 9KB]
  
  
• Risk Communication: A Neglected Tool in Protecting Public Health. A June 2003 publication from the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.
  
  [Link to Article]
  
  
• Risk Communication: A Lecture by Dr. John H. Marburger. Dr. Marburger, Science Advisor to the President, discusses his implementation of a comprehensive risk communication strategy used to rehabilitate the relationship of the Brookhaven National Laboratory to the neighboring community following its designation as a EPA Superfund Site.
  
  [Link to Article]