Villagran, MelindaMacArthur, Brenda L.Lee, Lauren E.Ledford, Christy J. W.Canzona, Mollie R.2020-03-192020-03-192017-05Villagran, M. M., MacArthur, B. L., Lee, L. E., Ledford, C. J. W., & Canzona, M. R. (2017). Physicians’ religious topic avoidance during clinical interactions. Behavioral Sciences, 7(2): 30.2076-328Xhttps://hdl.handle.net/10877/9465Religious and spiritual (R/S) conversations at the end-of-life function to help patients and their families find comfort in difficult circumstances. Physicians who feel uncertain about how to discuss topics related to religious beliefs may seek to avoid R/S conversations with their patients. This study utilized a two-group objective structured clinical examination with a standardized patient to explore differences in physicians' use of R/S topic avoidance tactics during a clinical interaction. Results indicated that physicians used more topic avoidance tactics in response to patients' R/S inquiries than patients' R/S disclosures; however, the use of topic avoidance tactics did not eliminate the need to engage in patient-initiated R/S interactions.Text9 pages1 file (.pdf)encommunicationreligionclinical interactionsCommunication StudiesArticle© 2017 The Authors.https://doi.org/10.3390/bs7020030Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.