Patterns of doctor-patient communication and their associations with health service quality: implications for medical education and practice

Background Doctor-patient communication plays an important role in clinical diagnosis and treatment and constitutes a key component of medical education and training. The patient-centered health philosophy drives shift in the priorities of medical education. By identifying patterns of doctor-patient communication and examining their associations with health service quality, this study provides empirical evidence for optimizing medical education. Methods This study collects on-site doctor-patient interaction data using the standardized patient (SP) method and measures doctor-patient communication with the Patient Perspective Patient-Centered Care Scale. Latent profile analysis is adopted to categorize distinct doctor-patient communication profiles, and regression analysis is applied to quantify associations between communication profiles and health service quality. Results This survey yielded 118 sets of doctor-patient interaction data generated by 59 doctors from 26 community health service centers and 12 SPs. Doctor-patient communication is classified into high-level, moderate-level, and low-level profiles. Compared with low-level communication, moderate-level communication (Coef = 0.07, P < 0.01) and high-level communication (Coef = 0.05, P < 0.05) are positively association with consultation standardization; moderate-level communication (Coef = 1.40, P < 0.05) and high-level communication (Coef = 2.39, P < 0.01) are positively associated with diagnostic accuracy; high-level communication is positively associated with treatment appropriateness (Coef = 1.40, P < 0.05) and total cost (Coef = 0.93, P < 0.05); High-level doctor-patient communication is negatively associated with unnecessary medications (Coef = − 1.25, P < 0.05). Conclusion High-quality doctor-patient communication is positively correlated with consultation standardization, diagnostic accuracy, treatment appropriateness, and total cost, and negatively correlated with unnecessary medications. This study suggests that communication training should be implemented to improve doctor-patient relationships and health service quality, with targeted efforts to foster patient-centered communication competencies among medical students and primary care doctors.