ABSTRACT
Based on the patient-centered clinical method (Brown, Weston, & Stewart, 1989; Levenstein, McCracken, McWhinney, Stewart, & Brown, 1986; Stewart, 1995; Weston, Brown, & Stewart, 1989), a method of scoring patient-doctor encounters that were either audiotaped or videotaped was developed. This scoring procedure has several advantages over the commonly used methods (Bales, 1950; Kaplan, Greenfield, & Ware, 1989; Roter, 1977; Roter, Cole, Kern, Barker, & Grayson, 1990; Stewart, 1984): (a) It does not require that the taped interview between the patient and the doctor be transcribed; and (b) it is theory based, that is, it was developed specifically to assess the behaviors of patients and doctors ascribed by the patient-centered clinical method (Stewart, 1995).
