Instrumental, Affective, and Patient-Centered Communication Between Cardiologists and Patients with Low Socioeconomic Status: An Observational Study

One of the essential elements in managing health is having adequate communication with health care providers. Unfortunately, patients with a low socioeconomic status (SES) often experience less adequate communication with their doctor. In the current study, we explore and compare the communication of both doctors and patients from lower and higher sociodemographic backgrounds on three factors: instrumental, affective, and patient-centered communication. In total, 45 cardiology consultations were observed, transcribed, and coded (16 low-SES, 16 middle-SES, 13 high-SES). Our analyses showed that, compared to higher-SES patients, low-SES patients voiced less of their concerns, answered questions of the doctor more often with one word, and expressed less utterances overall. Naturally, we found that doctors expressed more utterances overall toward low-SES patients. For doctors, no differences regarding instrumental, affective, or patient-centered communication were found. These findings suggest that low-SES patients are more passive communicators and communication differences based on SES exist predominantly for patients’ communication. The revealed communication differences may lead to a less adequate interaction and potentially worse patient outcomes, further increasing the socioeconomic health gap. Hence, doctors should become even more aware of socioeconomic patient communication differences so that they can appropriately encourage low-SES patients to become more active communicators.