Doctor’s words affect satisfaction of patients

Often times patients are given surveys to rate how their care was as a way to observe the performances of doctors. Shockingly, results shown that families with lower-income generally have poorer performances according to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and it was concluded that one of the key factors that contribute to the inequality is how well patients communicate to physicians.

However, the question raises, are the responses to these surveys reliable? What if one performance of a doctor was excellent to one patient but would have been flawed to another? There are many factors that contribute to the responses of these surveys other than the doctor’s performance. Though, the General hospital in Boston claim that what affects the performance of doctors is the communication of the patients. Yet, according to this article, Does Doctor–Patient Communication Affect Patient Satisfaction with Hospital Care? Results of an Analysis with a Novel Instrumental Variable, the patient’s rating is affected by the way the doctors talk to them.

Doctors are viewed as selfless dedicated workers but there are many mistakes that they can do that can affect the person’s care. For instance, doctors could unintentionally act superior than patients by talking down on them. Some doctors do not show that they are listening carefully to patient’s questions or their stories. Some doctors lack the ability to let the patients help on the decisions. Lastly, some doctors need to encourage questions to enhance the performance.

Whenever doctors make these communication mistakes, it will affect the survey responses for some people. However, the communication of the doctors do not affect the results drastically. Judging from the results it only affects .1 to 5 points in the surveys. Also, the people in this research were not diverse and spoke english eloquently. Therefore, the results didn’t show how people of other culture might react to the doctor’s performance.

Therefore, how the patients communicate to the doctors have a greater impact on his performance and their results because of their ability to give enough information for the doctors to make decisions.

Source

Clever, Sarah L., Lei Jin, Wendy Levinson, and David O. Meltzer. “Does Doctor–Patient Communication Affect Patient Satisfaction with Hospital Care? Results of an Analysis with a Novel Instrumental Variable.” Health Services Research. Blackwell Science Inc, Oct. 2008. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.