HOW COMMUNICATION PATTERNS IN DENTAL PRACTICE HAVE BEEN RE-SHAPED IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE PANDEMIC
HOW COMMUNICATION PATTERNS IN DENTAL PRACTICE HAVE BEEN RE-SHAPED IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE PANDEMIC

Summary/Abstract: The importance of doctor-patient communication has been well established in healthcare settings. However, the COVID-19 pandemic might have brought some new challenges to the doctor-patient communication and relationship by and large. Besides the fact that, at least for a while, in the beginning of the pandemic, the communication process took place mostly in the online medium, the whole new context has added new challenges to the doctor-patient interaction. Patients have become more anxious and nervous before a consultation and therefore the whole communication process had to be reshaped. This paper is going to address some of the major issues that have been brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in terms of developing the doctor-patient communication and the actual building of the relationship. The level of patients’ anxiety has increased and the doctors’ communication skills had to be rethought in order to respond to the patients’ present-day needs. This mainly has in view trying to find ways to reduce patients’ anxiety, the tendency to transfer the communication process in the online medium, and overcoming all the barriers that might affect the doctor-patient dialogue in the long run.

• Details
• Contents