Background

Recent UK surveys highlight women feel they are not listened to and dismissed during primary care appointments about health conditions considered specific to women (e.g., heavy periods, period pain).

Empathetic communication - which requires careful questioning, active listening and responding to patients’ needs - and realistic optimism – being both positive and realistic about treatment outcomes - have been shown to improve patient satisfaction and health. The Empathico e-learning intervention (developed at the University of Southampton) aims to promote primary care practitioners’ (PCPs’) communication of empathy and realistic optimism during appointments. Empathico skills are expected to be applied to appointments for all conditions, however, condition-specific modules can help in areas where PCPs find communication challenging.

This PhD project aims to add to Empathico by developing a specific module to improve PCPs’ communication during appointments about menstrual problems. The steps taken to develop the module will involve:

• Looking at past research on communication during primary care appointments between PCPs and patients with menstrual problems.
• Creating a new Empathico module based on discussions with PCPs and patients about their experiences and thoughts on the use of empathy and optimism.
• Later, PCPs will try the new module and in real-time be asked about the module’s strengths and weaknesses.
• A small evaluation of the module will recruit a handful of PCPs to work through the Empathico intervention (including the new module) at their own pace.

Ultimately, the module will support PCPs to enhance their communication with patients who present to primary care with menstrual problems which in turn may help patients feel more heard and better understood.

This PhD Project is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) School for Primary Care Research.