Abstract
A good relationship between doctors and patients makes it possible to speed up the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and achieve adherence to treatments. So we tried to understand the difficulties in the relationship between doctors and patients with this health condition, through a narrative research conducted at the Neurological Institute of Colombia in the city of Medellin, in which five people with multiple sclerosis, two of their caregivers and two treating professionals participated. Conversational interviews were conducted in depth, their homes were visited and their clinical histories were reviewed. A polyphonic narration was constructed for each participant, from which some stories that reveal difficulties in the doctor-patient relationship were extracted. These stories show a lack of confidence in the therapeutic proposals of the doctors, as well as the expressions from them, that denote contempt towards their patients. Discomfort due to the shortness of the consultations and difficulties to reach the diagnosis and to express it properly is added. This situation reveals difficulties to perform a good clinical approach, which may affect the agreements between doctors and patients, about the best therapeutic procedures to follow.
Keywords:
multiple sclerosis; physician-patient relations; narrative; trust