Physicians' Perceptions and Responses to Patient Emotion

ABSTRACT

Physicians serve a pivotal role in today's health systems, as they are often the first professional patients must contact for emotion problems. This study surveyed 225 practicing physicians to understand how they perceive patient emotion and the actio“emotion complaints” from a patient vignette, these physicians perceived the patient as experiencing anxiety, followed by fear, anger and sadness. Physicians had distinct preferences for psychosocial oriented responses (e.g., explore, reassure, and rationalize) and were least likely to avoid, distract, and ignore. Overall, anxiety and fear generated the greatest number of possible responses from physicians, anger and sadness the fewest.

Key Words:

• Health care social work
• physician
• emotion
• emotion interventions
• emotion management