Confidence in doctors, therapists and nursing staff leads to an improvement in subjectively perceived complaints, satisfaction and quality of life in patients. This is the conclusion of a meta-analysis by psychologists at the University of Basel, published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Confidence in doctors, therapists and nursing staff leads to an improvement in subjectively perceived complaints, satisfaction and quality of life in patients. This is the conclusion of a meta-analysis by psychologists at the University of Basel, published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Trust in doctors, therapists and nursing staff is a key requirement when treating patients, and is already laid down as a principle in the ethical guidelines and professional codes of each clinical field. Researchers from the Department of Psychology at the University of Basel and Harvard Medical School examined the question of whether trust, in addition to this ethical value, also produces clinical effects. The psychologists conducted a meta-analysis of 47 studies from Europe, Asia, North America and Australia which deal with the relationship between trust and an improved state of health in people undergoing medical treatment.
A positive impact on wellbeing
The results show that the confidence which patients have in medical personnel does not produce a clear-cut result: there was no proven effect when using objective clinical parameters or when doctors assessed the state of health. Trust nevertheless had a positive effect on the satisfaction, health-related behavior, quality of life and subjectively perceived complaints of those being treated.
Read more at University of Basel
Photo credit: National Cancer Institute via Wikimedia Commons
