The “Three C’s” Approach
Compassionate Understanding. Connection. Collaboration.
Engaging in a conversation with patients regarding health misinformation can feel risky or even unproductive, however, these conversations offer opportunities to build trust, support patients in making informed decisions, and mitigating the impact of harmful misinformation. These conversations can be initiated proactively when hesitancy is observed or reactively in response to a patient’s inaccurate health information.
To address and correct misinformation at the individual level (as opposed to the societal level), health professionals must first understand the cognitive processes that are involved in the acquisition and persistence of misinformation.4 When utilizing strategies to address health misinformation, understanding the underlying causes of patients’ confusion, concern, and mistrust can help guide health professionals on what strategies work best to correct misinformation and foster effective patient-centered communication.
When addressing health misinformation, health professionals should avoid:
- Simply telling a patient he or she is wrong
- Only offering corrective information
- Not treating the patient’s belief as worth of time or respect
- Being overly-direct or prescriptive, authoritative, or judgmental
Such approaches have been found to be largely ineffective & can even be counterproductive, thus further grounding an existing belief a patient may have.5 In fact, when providers approach such discussions in a prescriptive or authoritative manner, the patient-provider relationship can be damaged, leading to diminished trust and influence.
Instead, health professionals should approach these conversations with empathetic listening, patience, and humility to participate in dialogue that seeks to understand:
- What the patient believes
- Why the patient believes it
- And how they can be support the patient in making the best medical decisions
The “Three C’s” are guiding principles for how to have conversations with patients when countering health misinformation & they are to be used in any order, as conversation allows.
To learn more about the following principles, click on each of the following links:
Compassionate Understanding
Collaboration
Connection
After learning about each of the “Three C’s” click here to “put it all together” by reading through a few case studies.