Administrative & LegalQuestion 95 of 100
Which question best encourages a patient to describe a symptom in detail during intake?
a.Does the pain hurt a lot?
b.You are not having chest pain, are you?
c.Can you describe what the pain feels like and what you were doing when it started?
d.Is the pain gone now?
Explanation
Open-ended questions invite the patient to describe quality, timing, and context in their own words, which yields far more clinically useful information. Yes-or-no questions close the conversation after a single word. Leading questions such as the chest pain example suggest the answer and can cause the patient to withhold important symptoms.
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