Doctor-patient communication skills: a survey on knowledge and practice of Iranian family physicians.

BACKGROUND: Communication skills are fundamental to successful medical practice and can greatly impact patient satisfaction, compliance and outcomes. This study evaluated knowledge and practice of doctor- patient communication among the urban family physicians based on main items of Calgary Cambridge Observation Guides. METHOD: This cross-sectional study was conducted from July to September, 2019, in a 400 randomly selected sample of family physicians of Shiraz, Fars province. The data collection tool was a self-administered, second-part questionnaire developed by the researchers. Participants were asked about their age, gender, practice setting, and years of work experience and if they received any formal training in doctor- patient communication. Data were analyzed using SPSS (Version 16, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: The study participants included 204 male and 196 female family physicians with a mean age of 46.7 ± 7.7 years. The mean communication skills knowledge score was 41.5 (SD: ± 2.8) indicating a high level of knowledge. The mean score for practices was 38.7 (SD: ± 3.4), implying a moderate level of practice. Based on Bloom's scale, nearly 80% of family physicians had good knowledge about doctor-patient communication skills, however, 55% of participants reported moderate to poor level of practice in this regard. Results of multivariate regression analysis suggest that higher levels of related knowledge, having higher age or longer work experience, and working in the public sector can predict better practice scores (P < 0.005). CONCLUSION: There is a potential gap between knowledge and self-reported practices toward communication skills among a sample of Iranian family physicians. They have fundamental weakness in the most important evidence-based items of doctor- patient communication. Considering significant role of family physicians in prevention and control of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as an emerging challenge of our country, the topic of communication skills should be inserted as a top educational priority of family physicians.

Quantitative gene expression analysis of some sodium ion transporters under salinity stress in Aeluropus littoralis.

Plant sodium transporters activity is one of the most important salt tolerance mechanisms to keep normal status of cytosolic sodium content. In the present study, expression pattern of genes encoding Na(+)/H(+) antiporters in the plasma membrane (SOS1 gene), vacuolar membrane (NHX1 gene) and H(+)-ATPase pump (VHA gene) in Aeluropus littoralis under different treatments of NaCl was measured by the semi-quantitative RT-PCR method. Our results indicated that root and shoot sodium contents were increased along with increasing salinity pressure. In response to 200 and 400 mM NaCl, mRNA level of SOS1 and NHX1 was increased in the shoot and root tissues, while VHA transcripts were increased only under 400 mM of NaCl. Transcripts of VHA-c and NHX1 in root were higher than shoot in all treatments. In general, our results indicated that transcriptional level of SOS1, and NHX1 genes induced in parallel with VHA expression may be involved in controlling cytosolic Na(+) concentration in A. littoralis.