The Article in Brief

Background: Past research has suggested that a doctor’s style of interacting with the patient can influence a patient’s health. This study used detailed methods of analyzing data to reexamine the question of whether patient ratings of their doctors are related to patient ratings of changes in their own health.
What This Study Found: A doctor’s style of interacting with patients is not related to reported changes in health. The results of past research might have been influenced by patient characteristics. For example, patients with similar characteristics might go to the same doctors. Also patients who tend to rate their doctors highly might also tend to report better health. By using different methods of analyzing data, this study was able to eliminate the influence of patient characteristics on the study results. The results then show that there is not a relationship between a doctor’s style and patient health.
Implications:
* It is difficult to prove that a doctor’s style influences patient health.
* Past research has suggested that a doctor’s style which is centered around patient participation in care is best. This assumption may stand in the way of research into other beneficial ways of interacting with patients.