Table 2.

Use of facilitative phrases “isn’t it” (243 affective uses) and “don’t you” (52 affective uses) by male and female general practitioners in 373 consultations

Sex of doctor	No of consultations	Mean (SD) No of uses
“isn’t it”
Female	113	0.92 (1.94)*
Male	260	0.83 (1.58)*
“don’t you”
Female	113	0.26 (0.71)†
Male	260	0.10 (0.38)†

^*Difference 0.09 (95% confidence interval −0.32 to 0.495); P=0.68 (t test). 

^†Difference 0.16 (95% confidence interval 0.018 to 0.29); P=0.027 (t test).