[Influence of the companion in Primary Care consultations on communication skills and interview time].

Abstract

To know the influence of the companion in triadic clinical encounter on the quality of doctor-patient communication and the duration of the interview. Cross-sectional descriptive study. 10 Primary Care Centers. Resident doctors of Family and Community Medicine. Peer review of video recordings of clinical demand consultations. CICAA-2 questionnaire to assess communication skills (improvable, acceptable or adequate); age and sex, reasons for consultation and duration of the interview. Bivariate and multivariate analyses. Ethical authorization, oral informed consent and custody of the video recordings. 73 RD (53.8% women, 32.9±7.7 years) participated with 260 interviews (60.3% women and 2.1±1.0 clinical demands). 27.7% of consultations with a companion (female sex 65.3%). The mean duration of the interviews was 8.5±4.0min. Clinical encounters lasted longer when a companion attended (2.7±0.5min more; p Triadic communications challenge the clinician's communication skills, improving their abilities to identify and understand patient problems, albeit at the cost of a greater investment of time.