Research On Doctor-Patient Knowledge Transfer Influencing Mechanism Based On Doctor's Transfer Intention

The medical knowledge gap between doctors and patients is an important source of miscommunication and medical disputes. Appropriate and effective doctor-patient (D-P for short) knowledge transfer can bridge the cognitive gap between doctors and patients to prevent and reduce medical disputes. For the doctors have the advantage of the knowledge and treatment right, they play the dominant role in knowledge transfer. This dissertation discusses what factors influence the doctor's knowledge transfer from the perspective of doctor's transfer intention, revealing the behavior mechanism of the D-P knowledge transfer, and gives some proposals for promoting the D-P knowledge transfer behavior.The dissertation starts with review of literature. It summarizes the research about doctor-patient communication, individual knowledge transfer, and individual behavior theory, and defines the concept of D-P knowledge thransfer, and reviews theory of planned behavior (TPB) and its application in doctors'behavior. On the basis of academic analyses and the characteristics of healthcare service situation, a research model of D-P knowledge transfer based on doctor's transfer intention is formed.At the fisrst stage of empirical research, structured interviews with experts and a small-scale pre-investigaiton are carried out to adjust the theory model and questionnaire. At the second stage, the first hand data is collected by a survey and the result of questionnaire investigation is analyzed with SPSS 17.0. In addition, a surey on patients' expectation of D-P knowledge transfer with patient is conducted.The empirical results supported most of our hypothesis.The main conclusions are shown as follows:transfer attitude, subjective norms, self-efficacy, clinical situation are influence factors of doctor's intention and behavior in D-P knowledge transfer. Information verifying ability, knowledge accessibility, and information giving ability can well explain the doctor's optional transfer behavior. Emotional communicating ability, information giving ability, D-P acquaintance, emotional attitude can well explain the doctor's compulsory transfer behavior. Doctor's transfer intention mediates between the influnencing factors and optional transfer behavior. Doctors with different characteristics act differently on transfer intention and behavior. There is still a gap between doctor's actual transfer behavior and patient's expectation. These outcomes can guide the healthcare institutions and doctors how to improve their acts, and patients how to get more medical knowledge in the clinical situation.Finally, the dissertation summarizes the conclusions, and points out the limitation and the future prospect of this research.