Physicians' Communication Style and Patient Satisfaction

TLDR

Research has linked physicians' communication styles to patient satisfaction, but prior models focused narrowly on a single style and overlooked the broader spectrum. The study surveyed two general communication styles—affiliation and control. It examined eight social characteristics of medical interviews as potential mediators of how physician communication style affects patient satisfaction. Patients' evaluations of physicians' communication strongly correlated with overall care evaluations, with affiliative styles boosting satisfaction and dominant/active styles reducing it; illness severity, physician age, specialty, and prior visits moderated the influence of communication on care ratings.

Abstract

Research has linked the communication styles of physicians to patients' satisfaction with health care. Recently Ben-Sira (1976, 1980) offered a social interaction model to explain this relationship; this model, however, focused on a single, narrow style of communicating and overlooked the broader spectrum of styles. This survey assessed two general communication styles: affiliation and control. It also examined eight social characteristics of medical interviews as possible mediators of the impact of the physician's communication style on the patient's satisfaction. Patients' evaluations of the physician's communication were associated strongly with patients' evaluations of medical care, suggesting that competence in communication may be a facet of medical competence. Affiliative styles were related positively to patients' satisfaction, whereas dominant/active styles had a negative relationship with satisfaction. Severity of the illness, physician's age, physician's specialty, and the number of prior visits affected the importance of the physician's communication in the patient's evaluations of care.