Patient-physician communication in oncology: what does the evidence show?

Effective communication between patients and oncologists is an area of active and growing research interest. Evidence-based recommendations can be drawn from studies examining (1) the patient-physician relationship; (2) how physicians handle medical information; (3) how physicians deal with patient emotions; (4) system-level communication interventions; (5) physician self-management, and (6) educational interventions designed to improve communication. Existing research provides a great deal of descriptive data about patient-oncologist communication, although intervention studies that link communication to patient outcomes are much less common.