स्वास्थ्य शिक्षा अनुसंधान एवं विकास जर्नल

Promoting a Patient-Centered Approach in Clinics by Using a Different Way to Present Data of an Intervention Study: Some Examples from North India

Abstract

Meenakshi Sharma and Amarjeet Singh

The ultimate objective of any research in medical field is to benefit the patients. Therefore, it is important to present the study findings in a way to facilitate adoption of patient centered approach in OPDs. Most of the research data published on interventional studies shows the change in mean scores and reflects overall group wise impact. There is less focus on the effect of an intervention on symptom wise changes in the health of status of individual patients. The objective of this article is to suggest a different way for summarizing results of few intervention studies including that of the authors. Data from three Indian studies was taken. These studies have tabulated category wise result of shift in the symptom status of individual patients. In one of the study, 3 cases of moderate severity remained so in the same category even after intervention. Similarly, 20 mild cases remained mild and 1 severe case remained severe and so on. In this method of tabulating raw data, each case is entered in one cell only. Such an information is not reflected in the data format used in Tables where no inference can be drawn regarding the patients who did or didn’t respond to the intervention, e.g., their profile, compliance level etc. In nutshell, what worked and what did not work for the patients can be found out.