Physician communication with women who have multiple sclerosis

Physician communication with women who have multiple sclerosis

Kaitlin Muklewicz

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic illness which affects the nervous system of an individual and can lead to a variety of symptoms including mobility issues.  MS is a very unpredictable disease and each patient affected by the disease experiences it differently.  This unpredictability has the potential to cause issues between patients and physicians when communicating about the disease. This paper looks at the communication between physicians and patients with chronic illness; specifically, young females who are newly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis are the patients of interest for this paper.  This paper examines articles already published about the communication between doctors and patients about MS.  Furthermore, the goal of this paper is to uncover the importance of communication, and how doctors communicate with their MS patients.  Four topics that often come up during a patient’s health experience with a new disease include the initial diagnosis, questions regarding reproduction, potential employment issues, and treatment options.  By looking at how physicians talk with their patients about these topics, this paper attempts to discover how communication is important for a patient with MS.  Once a solid foundation is created for communication between doctors and patients, many of the patient’s questions will be answered relating to this unpredictable disease.

Keywords: Multiple sclerosis, communication, physician, patient, women