IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0094207.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Influence of the Patient-Clinician Relationship on Healthcare Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Author

Listed:
  • John M Kelley
  • Gordon Kraft-Todd
  • Lidia Schapira
  • Joe Kossowsky
  • Helen Riess

Abstract

Objective: To determine whether the patient-clinician relationship has a beneficial effect on either objective or validated subjective healthcare outcomes. Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data Sources: Electronic databases EMBASE and MEDLINE and the reference sections of previous reviews. Eligibility Criteria for Selecting Studies: Included studies were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in adult patients in which the patient-clinician relationship was systematically manipulated and healthcare outcomes were either objective (e.g., blood pressure) or validated subjective measures (e.g., pain scores). Studies were excluded if the encounter was a routine physical, or a mental health or substance abuse visit; if the outcome was an intermediate outcome such as patient satisfaction or adherence to treatment; if the patient-clinician relationship was manipulated solely by intervening with patients; or if the duration of the clinical encounter was unequal across conditions. Results: Thirteen RCTs met eligibility criteria. Observed effect sizes for the individual studies ranged from d = −.23 to .66. Using a random-effects model, the estimate of the overall effect size was small (d = .11), but statistically significant (p = .02). Conclusions: This systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs suggests that the patient-clinician relationship has a small, but statistically significant effect on healthcare outcomes. Given that relatively few RCTs met our eligibility criteria, and that the majority of these trials were not specifically designed to test the effect of the patient-clinician relationship on healthcare outcomes, we conclude with a call for more research on this important topic.

Suggested Citation

  • John M Kelley & Gordon Kraft-Todd & Lidia Schapira & Joe Kossowsky & Helen Riess, 2014. "The Influence of the Patient-Clinician Relationship on Healthcare Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(4), pages 1-7, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0094207
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0094207
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094207
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0094207&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0094207?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hardman, Doug & Geraghty, Adam W.A. & Lown, Mark & Bishop, Felicity L., 2020. "Subjunctive medicine: Enacting efficacy in general practice," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    2. Michelle L Dossett & Lin Mu & Roger B Davis & Iris R Bell & Anthony J Lembo & Ted J Kaptchuk & Gloria Y Yeh, 2015. "Patient-Provider Interactions Affect Symptoms in Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease: A Pilot Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-13, September.
    3. Krunoslav Nikodem & Marko Ćurković & Ana Borovečki, 2022. "Trust in the Healthcare System and Physicians in Croatia: A Survey of the General Population," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(2), pages 1-18, January.
    4. Laura Tam & Gail Garvey & Judith Meiklejohn & Jennifer Martin & Jon Adams & Euan Walpole & Michael Fay & Patricia Valery, 2018. "Exploring Positive Survivorship Experiences of Indigenous Australian Cancer Patients," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, January.
    5. Kovacs, Roxanne J. & Lagarde, Mylene & Cairns, John, 2022. "Can patients improve the quality of care they receive? Experimental evidence from Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    6. Ying Lau & Kin Sun Chan, 2018. "Psychometric evaluation of the Chinese version of the fear of intimacy with helping professionals scale," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-18, May.
    7. Ana Maria Rodriguez & Beth A Lown, 2019. "Measuring compassionate healthcare with the 12-item Schwartz Center Compassionate Care Scale," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-16, September.
    8. Luther, Louisa & Benkenstein, Martin & Rummelhagen, Katja, 2016. "Enhancing patients' hospital satisfaction by taking advantage of interpersonal similarity," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 50-58.
    9. Lazzaro-Salazar, Mariana & Pujol-Cols, Lucas J., 2022. "Instrumentos estandarizados para medir la relación médico-paciente: una revisión sistemática de la literatura internacional e iberoamericana," Nülan. Deposited Documents 3753, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales, Centro de Documentación.
    10. Meredith A. Perry & Bernadette Jones & Matthew Jenkins & Hemakumar Devan & Alister Neill & Tristram Ingham, 2023. "Health System Factors Affecting the Experience of Non-Invasive Ventilation Provision of People with Neuromuscular Disorders in New Zealand," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(6), pages 1-19, March.
    11. Óscar Rodríguez-Nogueira & Jaume Morera Balaguer & Abel Nogueira López & Juan Roldán Merino & José-Martín Botella-Rico & Sonia Del Río-Medina & Antonio R Moreno Poyato, 2020. "The psychometric properties of the person-centered therapeutic relationship in physiotherapy scale," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-16, November.
    12. Karen R. Sepucha & Steven J. Atlas & Yuchiao Chang & Andrew Freiberg & Henrik Malchau & Mahima Mangla & Harry Rubash & Leigh H. Simmons & Thomas Cha, 2018. "Informed, Patient-Centered Decisions Associated with Better Health Outcomes in Orthopedics: Prospective Cohort Study," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 38(8), pages 1018-1026, November.
    13. Quan-Hoang Vuong & Tung-Manh Ho & Hong-Kong Nguyen & Thu-Trang Vuong, 2018. "Healthcare consumers’ sensitivity to costs: a reflection on behavioural economics from an emerging market," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-10, December.
    14. Francesco Tramonti & Franco Giorgi & Annibale Fanali, 2021. "Systems thinking and the biopsychosocial approach: A multilevel framework for patient‐centred care," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 215-230, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0094207. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.