Impact of Locus of Control on Patient–Provider Communication: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Growing evidence shows there is heterogeneity in patient communication preferences and a need to tailor communication approaches accordingly. However, little is known about the psychosocial factors that influence communication preferences. Among them is locus of control (LOC), a belief about who or what determines outcomes, including health. Although LOC theory was developed over 60 years ago as a personality theory, its relevance in healthcare has increased over the past two decades. There is a paucity of empirical evidence on patient or provider LOC as it influences communication quality and outcomes in healthcare settings. We conducted a systematic review to collate the current state of the literature.

We carried out a comprehensive search of PubMed MEDLINE, Embase, PsycInfo, and Cochrane Library databases to retrieve relevant peer-reviewed articles. A total of 1152 publications were identified. Our final review included 17 articles that underwent data extraction and quality assessment.

The included studies found evidence of LOC associations with several patient and provider communication-related outcomes including satisfaction with care; medical decision-making and communication preferences; adherence; and patient-provider rapport. As opposed to generalized approaches to communication, assessing patient LOC may allow clinicians to tailor their approaches to match patients’ LOC. Our findings provide a starting point and highlight the need for future studies.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that influenced the research reported in this paper or the decision to publish the research findings.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22296934.v1 for the data extraction table and https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.22296931.v1 for the quality assessment table.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2023.2192014.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Science Einstein Montefiore [TR002558].