# Disparities in Patient-Centered Communication Experienced by Patients with Communication Disabilities

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER · 2021 · $38,945

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Patients with communication disorders (speech, language, and voice disorders) experience disparities in the
access to and receipt of high-quality healthcare services. Specifically, they report lower rates of satisfaction
with quality of care and communication with their providers and are three times more likely to experience a
preventable medical error when they are in the hospital. In descriptive studies, patients with communication
disorders (CD) state that challenges in patient-provider communication are a major contributor to these
disparities. Effective patient-provider communication has been identified as essential to high-quality care and
multiple studies demonstrate that it confers a host of benefits to patients, including improved adherence to
medical treatment and satisfaction with care. To date, no studies have directly evaluated whether there are
differences in providers’ communication behaviors when interacting with patients with or without a CD.
Namely, it is unknown whether providers use less patient-centered communication with patients with CDs.
Additionally, studies have demonstrated that provider characteristics, including their implicit and explicit biases,
can significantly affect their communication behaviors during clinical encounters. While negative implicit and
explicit biases toward disability has been measured in the general population, these biases have not been
evaluated in healthcare providers, nor have the potential effects of these biases on patient-provider
communication been described. In the United States, all medical students are required to receive training in
patient-provider communication. Receiving this instruction early in their training establishes positive behaviors
that they will use once they are practicing physicians. Determining whether medical students use less patient-
centered communication with patients with CD and whether they have implicit and explicit disability biases will
directly inform development of medical education trainings. In Aim 1, medical students’ patient-centered verbal
and non-verbal communication will be compared during a clinical encounter with a standardized patient who
stutters (speech disorder), has aphasia (language disorder), or does not have a CD. In Aim 2, medical
students’ implicit and explicit biases towards patients with disabilities will be determined. In Aim 3, medical
students’ will participate in qualitative interviews about their perceptions interacting with patients with a CD.
The study will provide necessary information on medical students’ communication behaviors and potential
biases that can be used to create effective interventions that aim to improve how providers communicate with
patients with CD. Effective interventions to improve communication are a necessary step to elimination of
healthcare disparities experienced by patients with CD.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10393171
- **Project number:** 3R21DC016965-03S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER
- **Principal Investigator:** Megan A Morris
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $38,945
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2018-09-18 → 2022-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10393171

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10393171, Disparities in Patient-Centered Communication Experienced by Patients with Communication Disabilities (3R21DC016965-03S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10393171. Licensed CC0.

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