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Considering the implications for compliance this study examined the communication styles preferred by GP's, complementary alternative medical (CAM) practitioners and the patients of both. 60 medical students, 31 CAM practitioners, 35 GP only patients and 27 CAM patients completed the Smith/Levy questionnaire, which discriminated four possible communication styles. CAM practitioners and their patients were seen to have a significantly greater preference for the Intuitive-Feeling (NF) style of communication when compared to GP's and GP only Patients respectively. Although predicted there was not a significantly greater preference for Sensing-judgment (SJ) occupational preference function among the medical students compared to CAM practitioners. Thus patients may turn to CAM because their preferred style of communication is less similar to their GP's than that of CAM practitioners, evidently implicating the role of communication styles in compliance.
