Humble doctors, healthy patients? Exploring the relationships between clinician humility and patient satisfaction, trust, and health status

Abstract

Objective: In medicine, numerous commentaries implore clinicians (e.g., physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners) to display more humility. However, given the complex power dynamics between patients and clinicians, one should not presume that patients desire and appreciate humble clinicians. This paper examines the relationship between clinician humility and patient outcomes, and aims to provide empirical evidence for the significance of clinician humility. Methods: In two studies, patients (N = 497) recalled their most recent visit to a clinician through an online survey platform (Qualtrics). Patients rated their clinician's humility, their satisfaction and trust with their clinician, and their health status. They also provided demographic information (e.g., gender, race, subjective SES), details about their clinician (e.g., gender, race, professional status) and information about their last medical visit with this clinician (e.g., purpose of visit, wait time during visit). Results: Through hierarchical multiple regression, we demonstrated that clinician humility positively predicted patient satisfaction, trust, and selfreport health (only in Study 2) above and beyond patient, clinician, and visit characteristics. Conclusion: The results demonstrated that clinician humility can predict important patient outcomes above and beyond objective characteristics of the medical interaction. Practice Implications: These findings may shape clinician-patient interactions by validating the pursuit of humility during medical encounters.

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“…Public hospitals should ensure the quality and 'zero defect' services to their clients. So, patient satisfaction becomes the main indicator of a nation's health sector (Etier Jr, Orr, Antonetti, Thomas, & Theiss, 2016;Huynh & Dicke-Bohmann, 2020). It is essential, first of all, to understand what this study committed to analyzing the factors behind the reason for the patient shift from public to private hospitals in the study area.…”

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