Doctor-Patient Communication in a Coastal Community in Pangandaran, West Java, Indonesia

Abstract

This study aims to explore challenges and obstacles of communication between medical doctors and patients in a Pangandaran coastal community. It used a qualitative research method, with a phenomenological approach based on in-depth interviews to get an overview of the event. The result shows that there is a certain doctor-patient communication pattern. More specifically, there was a transfer of knowledge from doctor to patient about the disease and health. However, patients did not understand a lot of health information, feeling reluctant to ask questions about the condition to the doctor. The patients' pretention to understand the doctor's explanation were the barriers in the communication process. Another obstacle occurred when doctors still directly examined the patient's disease without allowing them to complain. The challenge faced by patients was the difficulty of understanding the doctor's explanation of their illness due to the use of medical language, while the challenge faced by doctors was the difficulty of making patients aware of environmental health, lifestyle and healthy diet.