Relationship between outpatients’ perceptions of physicians’ communication styles and patients’ anxiety levels in a Japanese oncology setting

For life-threatening illnesses such as cancer that require a long-term treatment regimen, communication is particularly important between doctors and patients. While it is assumed that the more serious the illness, the greater the need to relieve patients’ anxiety, physicians’ communication styles can directly influence patients’ anxiety levels. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between outpatients’ perceptions of physicians’ communication styles and the patients’ anxiety levels in oncology settings. Patient anxiety level was measured using the State Trait Anxiety Inventory before and after the consultation. The Perceived Physicianʹs Communication Style Scale was developed in this study. Analysis of responses to the scale resulted in four factors — “acceptive”, “patient-centered”, “attentive”, and “facilitative” — of the physicianʹs communication style and explained 63.7% of the variance. The inter-correlation for overall scale items was 0.95. Patient satisfaction with the medical encounter was also measured to validate the physicianʹs communication style scale. Moderate correlation between the physicianʹs communication style and satisfaction was observed and confirms the relationship between a favorable communication style and a patientʹs satisfaction. After the consultation, the patients’ anxiety levels dropped 5.0±1.5 points (p<0.001), and the physicianʹs communication style was shown in many cases to be linked to patient anxiety levels after the consultation. The effect of the physicianʹs communication style on patients’ post-consultation anxiety levels was small among the patients with an advanced disease status. Also, the findings showed that patients’ post-consultation anxiety levels remained low even among those patients with unfavorable examination results if the patients evaluated their physicianʹs communication style as high. This study suggested that the physicianʹs communication style is important not only for moderating patients’ anxiety, but could also be helpful for moderating physicians’ own stress levels when communicating bad news to patients.