GRILO, Ana Monteiro. Relevance of assertiveness in health care professional-patient communication. []. , 13, 2, pp.283-297. ISSN 1645-0086.

A substantial body of evidence has been accumulated about the problems of communication between health care professionals and patients and the benefits of good communication. Some authors even considered communication the most import tool in health care. Since the early nineties, medical schools has increased the interest in communication skills teaching, but, despite this growing interest, limited attention is played on the assertive communication skills. Yet, while assertion training received increasing attention in the psychological literature, health professionals has been reluctant to support this learning and assertiveness training for caregivers is scarce. The aim of this paper is to present the contributions of assertive communication to more effective health care professionals’ communication and point out six specific themes (e.g., handling excessive feeling; making request) that should integrated communication skills training for students and health care professionals.

: assertiveness; themes; health care professional-patient communication.

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