Contact: Lisa M. Sullivan, PhD
(617) 353-9403
lsull@bu.edu

Empathetic, Knowledgeable Physicians Can Improve HIV Patient Satisfaction

HIV patients who see their primary care physician as empathetic or knowledgeable about the disease are more likely than other HIV patients to express satisfaction with their physician.

"Continuity of care and adherence to medication are critical for patients to achieve the maximum benefit of currently available, effective HIV treatment," said Lisa M. Sullivan, PhD, of Boston University. "Satisfaction with medical care, in general, and with primary care physicians, in particular, may promote continuity of care and adherence to medication among these patients."

The researchers questioned 146 HIV patients about their primary care physician after being enrolled in treatment for the disease and again six months later. The questions probed a number of aspects of the physician-patient relationship, including how comfortable patients were in discussing personal issues, how well they understood their physician's instructions, how empathetic they rated their physician, and how knowledgeable they believed their physician was about HIV.

The researchers reported their findings in the July issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

More than half (56 percent) of these patients reported complete or near complete satisfaction with their primary care physician. Overall, patients indicated that they were comfortable discussing personal issues and saw their physicians as empathetic but gave them lower ratings on their knowledge about the disease.

Patients who saw their physician as less empathetic or knowledgeable about HIV were significantly more likely to be dissatisfied with their primary care physicians. These two factors explained about half of the variation in HIV patients' ratings of satisfaction with their physicians, according to the researchers.

Other factors, such as gender, income, health status, and convenience of clinic hours, were not significantly related to HIV patients' satisfaction with their primary care physicians, the researchers added.

Support for this research was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar Award.

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The Journal of General Internal Medicine, a monthly peer-reviewed journal of the Society of General Internal Medicine, publishes original articles on research and education in primary care. For information about the journal, contact Renee F. Wilson at (410) 955-9868.