Doctors’ Emotion Regulation and Patient Satisfaction: A Social-Functional Perspective

Abstract

Emotion regulation has been identified as an important component of medical consultation but there is limited research on the topic. Two studies tested expected relationships between doctors’ emotion regulation (ER) skills and patient satisfaction and quality of doctor–patient interaction, focusing in particular on the role patient perceptions’ of doctors’ emotion regulation skills play in these associations. Study 1 comprised 100 patients reporting on their perceptions of doctors’ overall emotion regulation skills, communication quality and nonverbal immediacy, and their satisfaction with the care provided. Patients’ perceptions of doctors’ emotion regulation skills were associated with patient satisfaction and communication quality; patient perceptions of doctors’ nonverbal immediacy partially mediated these relationships. Study 2 collected data from 30 doctors who reported on their typical emotion regulation strategies of reappraisal and suppression and 139 of their patients who reported on satisfaction with the medical treatment and positive affect. As expected, doctors’ self-reported reappraisal was positively associated with their patients’ satisfaction and positive affect. Doctors’ suppression was also positively associated with patient satisfaction, while patients’ gender moderated these effects. The two studies empirically document proposed links between doctors’ emotion regulation and patient satisfaction. Notably, the results underline the role of patients’ perceptions of doctors’ emotion regulation skills and emotion expressions for patient outcomes and are in line with functional models of emotion in social interaction.