Does Provider's Supportive Communication Enhance Trust and Treatment Adherence Attitudes in Mild and Severe...

The way healthcare providers communicate with patients can influence patients' trust in providers and their attitudes toward treatment adherence. The present study investigated whether such influences of providers' communication can be modulated by dysfunction severity and participant gender.

In an online experiment, participants (N = 508) were instructed to imagine having either mild or severe olfactory dysfunction (OD). They were then randomized to watch a video of a healthcare provider delivering an olfactory training (OT) as a treatment for OD, with either neutral or emotionally supportive communication. Participants then rated their perceived trust in the provider, attitudes toward treatment effectiveness, treatment engagement, treatment unpleasantness, and treatment risk. State anxiety was measured before and after watching the videos.

Supportive communication elicited higher trust in the provider than neutral communication, with a small to medium effect size (Cohen's d = 0.36). While supportive communication did not directly affect anxiety, exploratory analyses showed that higher levels of trust in the supportive communication group were linked to lower anxiety. Moreover, supportive communication elicited higher treatment effectiveness attitude. No other treatment adherence attitudes were affected by the communication. Dysfunction severity did not affect trust in provider and treatment adherence attitudes. Men reported lower perceived treatment unpleasantness than did women, and no other gender differences emerged.

Supportive communication may elicit higher trust in provider independent of dysfunction severity and gender, however, likely with a smaller effect than previously assumed, and with no influence on attitudes toward adherence to treatment. Gender differences in perceived attitudes toward treatment adherence appear to be limited.