Int J Psychophysiol. 2017 Oct;120:14-22. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2017.06.006. Epub 2017 Jun 27.
Physicians' psychophysiological stress reaction in medical communication of bad news: A critical literature review.
International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology
Regina Katharina Studer, Brigitta Danuser, Patrick Gomez
Affiliations
Affiliations
- Institut universitaire romand de Santé au Travail (Institute for Work and Health), University of Lausanne & University of Geneva, Route de la Corniche 2, CH-1066 Epalinges, Switzerland. Electronic address: [email protected].
- Institut universitaire romand de Santé au Travail (Institute for Work and Health), University of Lausanne & University of Geneva, Route de la Corniche 2, CH-1066 Epalinges, Switzerland. Electronic address: [email protected].
- Institut universitaire romand de Santé au Travail (Institute for Work and Health), University of Lausanne & University of Geneva, Route de la Corniche 2, CH-1066 Epalinges, Switzerland. Electronic address: [email protected].
PMID: 28666771
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2017.06.006
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Stress is a common phenomenon in medical professions. Breaking bad news (BBN) is reported to be a particularly distressing activity for physicians. Traditionally, the stress experienced by physicians when BBN was assessed exclusively using self-reporting. Only recently, the field of difficult physician-patient communication has used physiological assessments to better understand physicians' stress reactions.
METHOD: This paper's goals are to (a) review current knowledge about the physicians' psychophysiological stress reactions in BBN situations, (b) discuss methodological aspects of these studies and (c) suggest directions for future research.
RESULTS: The seven studies identified all used scenarios with simulated patients but were heterogeneous with regard to other methodological aspects, such as the psychophysiological parameters, time points and durations assessed, comparative settings, and operationalisation of the communication scenarios. Despite this heterogeneity, all the papers reported increases in psychological and/or physiological activation when breaking bad news in comparison to control conditions, such as history taking or breaking good news.
CONCLUSION: Taken together, the studies reviewed support the hypothesis that BBN is a psychophysiologically arousing and stressful task for medical professionals. However, much remains to be done. We suggest several future directions to advance the field. These include (a) expanding and refining the conceptual framework, (b) extending assessments to include more diverse physiological parameters, (c) exploring the modulatory effects of physicians' personal characteristics (e.g. level of experience), (d) comparing simulated and real-life physician-patient encounters and (e) combining physiological assessment with a discourse analysis of physician-patient communication.
Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Breaking bad news; Medical students; Physicians; Physician–patient communication; Psychophysiology; Stress reaction
MeSH terms
Publication Types
