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  • authors accepted paper october 2017

    Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Patient Education and Counseling. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Patient Education and Counseling, 101, (4), 2018 DOI: 10.1016/Jj.pec.2017.10.017

    Accepted author manuscript, 545 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC-ND: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

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Do doctors’ attachment styles and emotional intelligence influence patients’ emotional expressions in primary care consultations?: An exploratory study using multilevel analysis

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>04/2018
<mark>Journal</mark>Patient Education and Counseling
Issue number4
Volume101
Number of pages6
Pages (from-to)659-664
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date6/11/17
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

Objective: To investigate whether and how doctors’ attachment styles and emotional intelligence (EI) might influence patients’ emotional expressions in general practice consultations.
Methods: Video recordings of 26 junior doctors consulting with 173 patients were coded using the Verona Coding Definition of Emotional Sequences (VR-CoDES). Doctors’ attachment style was scored across two dimensions, avoidance and anxiety, using the Experiences in Close Relationships: Short Form questionnaire. EI was assessed with the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. Multilevel Poisson regressions modelled the probability of patients’ expressing emotional distress, considering doctors’ attachment styles and EI and demographic and contextual factors.
Results: Both attachment styles and EI were significantly associated with frequency of patients’ cues, with patient- and doctor-level explanatory variables accounting for 42% of the variance in patients’ cues. The relative contribution of attachment styles and EI varied depending on whether patients’ presenting complaints were physical or psychosocial in nature.
Conclusion: Doctors’ attachment styles and levels of EI are associated with patients’ emotional expressions in primary care consultations. Further research is needed to investigate how these two variables interact and influence provider responses and patient outcomes.
Practice Implications: Understanding how doctors’ psychological characteristics influence PPC may help to optimise undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.

Bibliographic note

This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Patient Education and Counseling. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Patient Education and Counseling, 101, (4), 2018 DOI: 10.1016/Jj.pec.2017.10.017