Exploration of doctor and patient agendas in general practice consultations.

A method for the interactional analysis of doctor/patient consultations is described and applied to six naturally occurring general practice interviews by three raters. The method is reliable given sufficient training and satisfies the stringent criteria for any method of analysis for medical interviews proposed by Wasserman and Inui [1: Wasserman R.C. and Inui R.S. Med. Care 21, 279, 1983].