Racial disparities in clinician responses to patient emotions

In a previous study of patients newly enrolled in HIV care, we observed that clinicians were less likely to address emotional issues expressed by African-American patients compared to whites. We sought to verify and expand these findings in a larger group of patients established in HIV care.

We used VR-CoDES to analyze transcripts from 342 audio-recorded medical visits in the United States. We used random intercept multilevel logistic regression to assess associations between patient and clinician characteristics and patterns of emotional talk.

African-American patients were less likely than others to spontaneously express emotions (OR 0.50; 95 % CI 0.29-0.85). Clinicians, who were predominantly white, were more likely to respond to emotional expressions by African-American patients explicitly (OR 1.56; 95 % CI 1.11-2.20) but less likely to offer neutral/passive responses that provide space for emotional conversation (OR 0.56; 95 % CI 0.37-0.84) and more likely to block discussion of the emotional issue (OR 2.20; 95 % CI 1.05-4.63). Emotional talk did not vary by patient age or gender.

These results confirm our prior findings, demonstrating less open emotional communication between African-American patients and their providers.

Addressing racial differences in communicating about emotions may reduce disparities in patient-clinician relationships.