Health professionals' interpersonal skills and patient outcome indices

This article examines the relationship between health professionals' interpersonal skills (e.g., active listening, information presentation, expression of warmth, and nonverbal behavior) and patient outcomes. Patient outcomes demonstrated to be related to interpersonal skills include level of post-operative pain, length of hospital stay, patient satisfaction and compliance. Patient compliance is one patient outcome of particular concern to the health care system, and it is argued that improvements in interpersonal skill, leading to increased patient satisfaction, should reduce noncompliance rates. Several studies attempting to reduce noncompliance rates in this way are reviewed, and the importance of training health professionals in interpersonal skills is stressed.