Empirical Study on the Influence of Nurturers’ Personality Traits on the Contradiction between Doctors and Patients in Pediatric Clinic

Abstract

At present, the contradiction between doctors and patients is widespread, especially for children's hospitals, and our research aimed to found the relationship between personality traits (neuroticism dimension, conscientiousness dimension, extroversion dimension, and agreeableness dimension), gender, age, waiting time and doctor-patient contradictions in the outpatient department. Methods NEO Five Factor Inventory was used to carry out NEO Five Personality Test on the parents in the waiting area of outpatient department in Shanghai Children's Hospital. The self-made observation table was used to record whether there were conflicts between parents and health care workers among the whole waiting time and the general information (age, gender) of parents. Logistic regression were used to analyze the relationship between nurturers' personality traits, age, gender, waiting time and the conflicts between parents and health care workers in the outpatient department. Result Among the total of 8 factors, 3 factors were the independent influencing factors of doctorpatient contradiction, that is, the age (OR=1.086, 95% CI 1.016~1.161 P=0.015), waiting time (OR=2.745, 95% CI 1.936~3.892 P<0.0001) and neuroticism (OR=1.108, 95% CI 1.055~1.162 P<0.0001) were the risk factors of doctor-patient contradiction. The result showed that nurturers' personality traits had an influence on the doctor-patient contradictions; high neuroticism nurturers were more likely to have doctor-patient contradictions. All in all, with longer waiting time, the older with higher neurotic scores were more luckily to have conflicts with health care workers. Conclusion The hospital can start from the factors that affect the doctor-patient contradictions to seek benefits and avoid disadvantages, improving the quality and safety of consultation and providing good medical experience for children so as to enhance the overall competitiveness of the hospital.