Table 1

RIAS doctors: frequency of code groupings according to consultation type (after Paasche-Orlow and Roter21)*

Communication behaviour	Unadjusted			Adjusted^*
Communication behaviour	Telephone	Face to face	p Value	p Value	95% CI
Data gathering
Closed-ended biomedical questions	3.5	8.6	0.002	0.033	+0.3 to +7.7
Open-ended biomedical questions	1.4	3.1	0.008	0.09	−0.2 to +3.1
Closed-ended psychosocial questions	0.2	1.9	0.008	0.044	+0.1 to +3.5
Open-ended psychosocial questions	0.3	0.3	1.00
Bids for clarification	0.1	0.5	0.09
Total count	5.5	14.4	<0.001	0.003	+2.9 to +13.3
Patient education and counselling
Provides biomedical info	7.3	19.4	<0.001	<0.001	+4.8 to +13.2
Provides psychosocial info	1.0	1.7	0.36
Counsels biomedical	2.7	5.4	0.012	0.06	−0.1 to +5.3
Counsels psychosocial	0.2	0.3	0.56
Total count	11.2	26.9	<0.001	<0.001	+5.8 to +17.2
Rapport building
Personal remark	2.2	3.4	0.051
Laughter/tells jokes	0.6	3.1	<0.001	<0.001	+1.1 to +3.2
Approval	0.2	0.6	0.08
Empathy	0.3	0.5	0.37
Concern	0.1	0.3	0.045	0.66	−0.3 to +0.4
Reassure	0.8	3.6	<0.001	0.012	+0.5 to +3.6
Legitimate	0.1	0.2	0.25
Total count	4.1	11.8	<0.001	<0.001	+3.9 to +10.0
Partnership building
Paraphrase (checks understanding)	0.1	0.1	0.77
Partnering (shows partnership/support)	0.2	0.4	0.25
Asks for opinion	0.2	0.7	0.023	0.30	−0.4 to +0.8
Asks for understanding	0.1	1.1	0.28
Asks for reassurance	0.0	0.1	0.31
Total count	0.6	2.4	0.044	0.26	−1.2 to +4.2
Disagreement
Shows disapproval	0.1	0.4	0.33
Shows criticism	0.0	0.1	0.16
Total count	0.1	0.5	0.27	0.69	−0.7 to +1.1
Giving direction
Transition	0.5	1.1	0.09
Gives orientation	0.6	3.9	<0.001	0.15	−0.6 to +4.1
Total count	1.1	5.0	<0.001	0.09	−0.4 to +4.5
Total count of all codes	34.0	74.5	<0.001	<0.001	+19.5 to +43.9
RIAS patients: frequency of code groupings according to consultation type^*
Data gathering
Closed-ended biomedical questions	1.2	1.6	0.29
Open-ended biomedical questions	0.2	0.5	0.09
Closed-ended psychosocial questions	0.1	0.2	0.35
Open-ended psychosocial questions	0.03	0.01	0.81
Bids for clarification	0.1	0.1	0.47
Total count	1.5	2.4	0.09	0.28	−0.6 to +2.1
Provides information
Provides biomedical information	14.2	27.8	<0.001	0.028	+1.0 to +16.1
Provides psychosocial information	1.8	7.9	0.002	0.06	−0.3 to +8.9
Total count	16.0	35.8	<0.001	0.002	+5.0 to +20.1
Rapport building
Personal remark	1.8	2.4	0.34
Laughter/tells jokes	0.7	4.9	<0.001	0.003	+1.0 to +4.4
Approval	0.2	0.2	0.71
Empathy	0.0	0.0	n/a
Concern	0.3	0.6	0.17
Reassure	0.1	0.4	0.08
Legitimate	0.0	0.0	n/a
Total count	3.1	8.6	<0.001	0.003	+1.4 to +6.2
Partnership building
Paraphrase (checks understanding)	0.1	0.0	0.09
Partnering (shows partnership/support)	0.0	0.0	n/a
Asks for opinion	0.03	0.0	0.24
Asks for understanding	0.06	0.06	0.96
Asks for reassurance	0.0	0.2	0.046	0.66	−0.2 to +0.2
Total count	0.1	0.2	0.46	0.55	−0.2 to +0.4
Disagreement
Shows disapproval	0.5	0.5	0.92
Shows criticism	0.2	0.1	0.29
Total count	0.7	0.6	0.79	0.25	−1.9 to +0.5
Direction
Transition	0.1	0.2	0.63
Gives orientation	0.1	0.1	0.48
Total count	0.2	0.3	0.49	0.63	−0.7 to +0.4

Total count of all codes	29.3	62.2	<0.001	<0.001	+9.3 to +30.4

RIAS, Roter Interaction Analysis Scale,
↵* The figures represent the average number of utterances of this type in each sort of consultation. Adjusted p values and confidence intervals for mean difference between face-to-face and telephone consultations are shown where the unadjusted result was significant, and take account of age, sex, number and type of presented problems, doctor/patient initiation, length of consultation and consulting doctor.