This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Elizabeth Ralston, MPH; Philip Zazove, MD; Daniel W. Gorenflo, PhD
University of Michigan Medical Center Ann Arbor

JAMA. 1995;274(10):794.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—The little research that has been done on the health status of deaf and hard-of-hearing (D&HH) people suggests that they have altered health care utilization patterns and poor health status. The last National Health Interview Survey to study this in D&HH people revealed that they see physicians more often, have more bed days due to illness, and rate their health as poorer than persons with normal hearing.¹ Our more recent data confirmed this and found it unclear whether this is due to poor physician-patient communication, inadequate health care information, coexisting chronic medical conditions, or cultural differences.² The article by Drs Ebert and Heckerling³ is a welcome addition to the sparse literature on this problem that adds ammunition to the fact that there is poor physician communication with deaf patients.

Most health care personnel know little about deafness and how D&HH people communicate.⁴ Physicians' . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Footnotes
Edited by Drummond Rennie, MD, Deputy Editor (West), Margaret A. Winker, MD, Senior Editor, and Phil B. Fontanarosa, MD, Senior Editor.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?