A new publication on results of the SOUND Consensus meeting

On March 2019, the paper “Consensus communication strategies to improve doctor-patient relationship in paediatric severe asthma” was published to the Italian Journal of Pediatrics.

The paper reports the outcomes of the Consensus meeting, held in September 2017 in Baveno (Italy) where strategies for good communication with children/caregivers with severe asthma were discussed. This could be considered an important goal emerged from the results of the Narrative Medicine project SOUND (‘Scrivere narraziOni di pazienti in asma grave per Una Nuova efficace Diversificazione e valorizzazione delle cure’).

Here an abstract of the paper for our readers:

Background

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease that is very common among youth worldwide. The burden of this illness is very high not only considering financial costs but also on emotional and social functioning. Guidelines and many researches recommend to develop a good communication between physicians and children/caregiver and their parents. Nevertheless, a previous Italian project showed some criticalities in paediatric severe asthma management. The consensus gathered together experts in paediatric asthma management, experts in narrative medicine and patient associations with the aim of identify simple recommendation to improve communication strategies.

Methods

Participants to the consensus received the results of the project and a selection of narratives two weeks before the meeting. The meeting was structured in plenary session and in three working groups discussing respectively about communication strategies with children, adolescents and parents. The task of each working group was to identify the most effective (DO) and least effective practices (DON’ T) for 5 phases of the visit: welcome, comprehension of the context, emotions management, duration and end of the visit and endurance of the relationship.

Results

Participants agreed that good relationships translate into positive outcomes and reached consensus on communication strategies to implement in the different phase of relationships.

Conclusions

The future challenges identified by the participants are the dissemination of this Consensus document and the implementation of effective communication strategies to improve the management of pediatric asthma.

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