Communicating with Alexithymic and Non-Alexithymic Patients: An Experimental Study of the Effect of Psychosocial Communication and Empathy on Patient Satisfaction

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have shown that alexithymia is associated with a wide range of somatic and psychiatric conditions. The aim of this study was to investigate experimentally how psychosocial communication and empathic response from the physician affects satisfaction in alexithymic and non-alexithymic patients. Method: Seven physicians and 65 female patients from a fibromyalgia patient association participated in the study. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) was used to categorise patients as alexithymic or non-alexithymic. Patients also completed questionnaires regarding trait anxiety and satisfaction with their consultation. Physicians were instructed to differentiate their communication in terms of both psychosocial matters and empathic response. The content of the consultation was analysed using the Roter Interactional Analysis System. Results: Regression analyses revealed that alexithymic patients were significantly more satisfied when they received a greater empathic response from the physician. Non-alexithymic patients, however, were more satisfied when the consultation was of longer duration. Psychosocial communication did not have any statistically significant effect on satisfaction in either of the two subgroups. Conclusions: Verbalised empathic response from the physician may be crucial for the alexithymic patient’s post-consultation satisfaction and may thereby become the basis for a solid treatment alliance. The validity of this hypothesis should be tested in different clinical settings and with different patient populations. Future research on alexithymic patients’ response to psychosocial communication may benefit from determining to what extent this communication is concerned with general distress or more complex emotional phenomena.

Alexithymia and Interpersonal Problems

“…Replication studies should overcome these shortcomings and extend the findings to other clinical samples and particularly to nonclinical samples. Despite these methodological limitations, we believe that an interpersonal perspective may add valuable insights to a better understanding of alexithymia in several research settings [44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50]and might help to refine therapeutic strategies for alexithymic patients.…”

Measuring Patients' Perceptions of Patient-Centered Care: A Systematic Review of Tools for Family Medicine

“…Sixty-three articles were retained to be read completely; 20 additional references were identifi ed by a hand search, and 7 were included as a result of experts' suggestions. Of these 90 articles, 64 were excluded: 23 addressed a concept other than patient-centered care and did not measure at least 2 dimensions of the conceptual framework ; 11 reported on instruments assessing physicians' or nurses' perceptions [55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65] ; 19 did not deal with quantitative instruments [21][22][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82] ; 7 were not relevant to an ambulatory family medicine context (6 in an inpatient context [83][84][85][86][87][88] and 1 in specialty medicine 89 ); 1 measured relations between the patient and the nurse specifi cally 79 ; 1 described an instrument designed to evaluate staff (very general questions) 90 ; and 2 did not provide suffi cient information on the development and validation of the instrument. 91,92 A fi nal sample of 26 articles (Table 1) was retained for data extra...…”

The Impact of Trust, Interaction, and Empathy in Doctor-Patient Relationship on Patient Satisfaction

“…Empathy can manifest as behaviors in interpersonal interactions and can be perceived by patients [14,15], Empathic communication behaviors by clinicians have been associated with higher patient satisfaction [16][17][18], compassion and empathy are themes that have been talked about often over the last few years within the health environment [19] is a central aspect of healthcare, and has been associated with positive outcomes not only for the patient [20][21][22].…”