Journal of clinical psychology in medical settings
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J Clin Psychol Med Settings · Dec 2012
Physician burnout and patient satisfaction with consultation in primary health care settings: evidence of relationships from a one-with-many design.
Physician burnout, as a prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job, has been associated with suboptimal patient care and deterioration in the patient-provider relationship. Although prior studies have identified a range of factors associated with decreased patient satisfaction, most have been conducted in tertiary care settings, with staff burnout examined at the hospital unit-level. To examine the impact of physician burnout on patient satisfaction from consultation in the primary care setting, a cross-sectional survey was conducted in Western Greece. ⋯ Moreover, physician emotional exhaustion and depersonalization remained significant factors associated with patient satisfaction with consultation, after controlling for patient and physician characteristics. Patients of physicians with high-exhaustion and high-depersonalization had significantly lower satisfaction scores, compared with patients of physicians with low-exhaustion and low-depersonalization, respectively. Future studies need to explore the mechanisms by which physician burnout affects patient satisfaction.