In recent two decades, the incidence and severity of medical disputes have been dramatically increasing in China which has a negative influence for patients, doctors and hospitals. It must be seriously regarded that 80% of the medical disputes are caused by the bad attitude of health care professionals, ethical problems, and poor communication skill with patients. Chinese health care professionals should be aware of how to establish a good doctor-patient relationship. The development of evidence-based medicine (EBM) will help us bridge a gap between medical science and clinical practice, revise our opinions, update our knowledge and improve our service. Cooperation with the Chinese Evidence-Based Medicine Center (CEBMC), and the Chinese Medical Doctor Association (CMDA) will help doctors practice legally and in an evidence-based manner so as to protect both rights of patients and doctors.
Objective To seek the best evidence on communication between physicians and patients so as to improve the physician-patient relationship in China. Methods We used the key words ‘physician-patient relationship’ and ‘communication’ to identify related systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and then evaluated them with the Overview Quality Assessment Questionnaire (OQAQ) checklist. Results Seventeen studies were included for final evaluation. According to the OQAQ checklist, the score range of the study quality was 3 to 9. 41.29% (7/17) of the included studies scored 7 to 9, 23.5% (4/17) scored 6, and 35.3% (6/17) scored 3 to 5. Factors influencing physician-patient communication primarily included communication targets, time, contents, and approaches. Conclusion There are not enough studies on physician-patient communication in China. We need to identify the problems affecting communication behavior, encourage patients to express their preferences, choose appropriate training strategies, and make timely evaluation so as to better satisfy the needs of patients and physicians.