Patient-centered communication.

The term patient-centered communication (PCC) has been used to describe a group of communication strategies and behaviors that promote mutuality, shared understandings, and shared decision making in health care encounters. There is evidence to suggest that advanced practice nurse and patients use these strategies to co-produce highly individualized clinical discourse. Although the communication behaviors associated with PCC have been studied separately, their impact as an integrated communications strategy has not been studied. Suggestions for developing PCC as a mid-range theory of health care communication encompassing other more specific communication concepts are offered.