Peoples’ experiences with pouches (P.E.W.P.) study: medical clinician communication and the stigmatization of people with an ostomy

Abstract

Background: Health disparities are a persistent problem for many patient populations and a major concern of the healthcare system. Decades of research demonstrates the importance of medical clinician communication in patient health outcomes. Few studies, however, have focused on medical clinician communication with a patient group that often faces discrimination: people with an ostomy. An ostomy is a surgically rerouted bowel and/or bladder, resulting in bodily fluids discharged into a pouch.

Objective: To investigate whether interactions between ostomy patients and medical clinicians adequately prepare ostomy patients to care for their new appliance, and whether the quality of clinician communication differs based on patient demographic characteristics.

Method: Using a nonprobability national sample of 353 ostomy patients, I conducted a retrospective quantitative study. I measured quality of clinician communication from self-reports from ostomy patients, coding open-ended responses using the open-coding method.

Results: The results show that a little more than half (53%) reported receiving adequate communication from clinicians. Log binomial regression models show a statistical relationship between ostomy patients’ educational attainment and reporting receiving adequate communication. Notably, patients with a high school degree or fewer years of educational attainment were statistically more likely to reported receiving adequate communication compared to patients with a postgraduate degree.

Conclusion: The results suggest that not only do ostomy patients need better communication from clinicians following their surgery, but also, patients with higher educational attainment may be expecting more from their medical clinicians in the way of information and communication. Key words: provider-patient communication, ostomy, quality health care