Last Updated on March 7, 2024 by Partha Protim Choudhury
Dr Sudeshna Mukherjee, MBBS, MD, DNB, is a seasoned Consultant Psychiatrist, Sexologist, and De-addiction specialist. With over a decade of experience in the medical field, she has served at prestigious institutions like ANTARA Psychiatric Hospital, Kolkata, and Gujarat Institute of Mental Health, Ahmedabad. Currently, she serves as a Consultant Psychiatrist at Shanti Mindcare, Neotia Mediplus, and Brain and Pain Clinic in Siliguri. Additionally, she extends her expertise as a Visiting Psychiatrist at Hope and Heal Cancer Hospital in Siliguri, West Bengal.
When a patient explains to you about their health problems, what are the most common mistakes they make in their communication?
One of the frequent errors in patient communication with doctors involves arriving after extensive internet searches, leading to confusion due to the abundance of information. Patients often use medical terminology casually and self-diagnose rather than accurately reporting their symptoms to the doctor. Additionally, stigma and misinformation from peers or social media can cause patients to overlook or conceal symptoms during early visits, which may only disclose later on. Moreover, relatives may withhold pertinent history and stress-related details. Particularly in Psychiatry, there’s a tendency to avoid sharing previous or family treatment history due to stigma and lack of awareness.
What does health literacy mean to you, and why is it important in patient care?
Health literacy is an essential need that helps patients to be equipped with proper information regarding disorders, use this information to procure services as well as identify any warning signs in themselves as well as their near and dear ones. However, it is important that they do receive such information from authentic sources. In patient care, and health literacy plays a very important role as it not only helps understand the course of the disease or disorder the patient is suffering from but also helps to adhere to the treatment advice with practical expectations from the treatment process. Many diseases and disorders have better prognosis if detected and treated early. Having proper health literacy in the patient or even the caregivers help us medical professionals to provide adequate and prompt treatment so that we can look forward to better treatment for the patient in his/her life.
If a patient is knowledgeable about the basics of their health condition, how helpful is it for the overall treatment procedure?
When patients have a basic understanding of their health condition, it facilitates a systematic treatment process, from history-taking to investigations and interventions. This knowledge empowers patients to become active allies, providing valuable insights and reporting additional symptoms or information to aid in their treatment. Moreover, being aware helps alleviate anxiety related to uncertainty or ignorance, particularly in chronic conditions requiring ongoing treatment or follow-ups. A well-informed and mentally stable patient can effectively collaborate with the doctor, leading to better treatment outcomes. Additionally, having knowledge about their health condition enables patients to provide clear details to the doctor, which aids in addressing any comorbidities and overall improvement.
How much can medical misinformation impact treatment procedures?
Very much. Medical misinformation often hampers treatment adherence and medicine compliance. Often misinformation about medicines and their side effects makes patients take inadequate doses which delays treatment and hence impacts overall prognosis. Misinformation may also delay treatment initiation due to stigma and misinformation and even cause financial losses for the patient and caregiver when the patient actually starts treatment after being misled by multiple sources.
What are the most common myths or misinformation you see your patients falling prey to?
We often encounter many myths that patients bring to us. I would like to share some related incidents in my field of Psychiatry: 1. Many people think psychiatric medications as a whole are addictive or require lifelong consumption. Some also think these medicines make you cognitively dull or taking them actually implies you are unable to manage things on your own or are weak. However, such concepts are actually wrong. The doctor can regulate medicines and doses in acute and maintenance phases. Also, not all psychiatric medicines are addictive. You can clearly talk to your doctor regarding any misconception you have regarding psychiatric drugs or look for authentic sources to answer your queries instead of looking up non-authentic sources. 2. Another example of myth exists often in the area of sexual health where people do not report their symptoms to the doctor as a significant taboo is surrounding the issue. They often look up non-verified sources, take treatment or fall prey to marketing strategies by certain platforms which falsely promise to help them. Health literacy and sex education for the mass is a need of the hour so that patients do not ignore symptoms or have misconceptions regarding sex as it can have a significant impact on mental as well as physical health.
What is your most common advice to patients to stay away from health misinformation online?
I always advise my patients to stick to authentic sources online that are verified and supported by public health authorities. It is also important to report detected misinformation in any online platform so that action can be taken against such platforms. Similarly, it is important to cross-check any information you read with a medical professional or anyone who is actually trained in a particular treatment or investigation procedure that the patient plans to do. It is important to limit information intake too as social media does often have a huge load of information which may not always be the need of the hour. Finally, to thwart fake information, it is important to verify information from multiple sources.
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