The importance of the orthopaedic doctors' appearance: A cross-regional questionnaire based study

Aitken, Stuart A.; Tinning, C; Gupta, Sanjay; Medlock, G.; Wood, Alexander; Aitken, Margaret A.

doi:10.1016/j.surge.2013.07.002

Cited by 30 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…For several reasons, location may have an effect on respondents' preferences. In the United Kingdom, for example, the ''bare below the elbows'' policy might substantially alter patients' perceptions of their physician's attire [1,3]. Geographic location also might influence patients' preferences owing to various cultural or even climate-related Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Randomization was determined by computer software so that respondents viewed each type of attire in a unique order. Depicted attire for the surgeons of both sexes was chosen as similar as possible to clothing depicted in the majority of prior studies on the topic [1,12,15,16], to maintain comparability. Similarly, the choice of white surgeons is in keeping with nearly all previous studies on this topic and serves to further isolate our intended study variable [1,12,15,16].…”

Section: Description Of the Survey Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A scale from 1 to 5 was chosen, as previous research has not shown superiority with more expansive scales [9]. Survey questions were developed based on a review of questions used in previous studies and the desired focus of this study [1,12,15,16]. Given that question responses were to be assessed individually and that no cumulative or summary score was planned, survey questions were not piloted nor otherwise quantitatively tested.…”

Section: Description Of the Survey Instrumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recommendations for attire have ranged from casual in the pediatrics and psychiatry settings to formal with a white coat in internal medicine [5,8]. However, there is scant research regarding the influence of physicians' attire in an orthopaedic outpatient setting, particularly regarding urban United States populations [1]. Although recommendations from prior studies are conflicting, some authors acknowledge the strong influence of location and specialty on patient perceptions [1,15,16,23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, there is scant research regarding the influence of physicians' attire in an orthopaedic outpatient setting, particularly regarding urban United States populations [1]. Although recommendations from prior studies are conflicting, some authors acknowledge the strong influence of location and specialty on patient perceptions [1,15,16,23]. While conducting a separate study in every subspecialty is neither feasible nor warranted, the purpose of our study was to reconcile previously contradicting recommendations and to understand how a surgeon's attire affects patients' perceptions in an urban orthopaedic outpatient setting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Physicians’ Attire Influences Patients’ Perceptions in the Urban Outpatient Orthopaedic Surgery Setting

Jennings

Ciaravino

Ramsey

et al. 2016

Clinical Orthopaedics &Amp; Related Research

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Background Previous work has established that physician attire influences patients' perceptions of their physicians. However, research from different specialties has disagreed regarding what kinds of physician attire might result in increased trust and confidence on the part of patients. Questions/Purposes The purpose of this study was to investigate how surgeon attire affects patients' perceptions of trust and confidence in an urban orthopaedic outpatient setting. Methods Eighty-five of 100 patients solicited completed a three-part questionnaire in the outpatient orthopaedic clinic at an urban teaching hospital. In the first section, participants viewed eight images, four of a male surgeon and four of a female surgeon wearing a white coat over formal attire, scrubs, business attire, and casual attire, and rated each image on a five-level Likert scale. Participants were asked how confident, trustworthy, safe, caring, and smart the surgeon appeared, how well the surgery would go, and how willing they would be to discuss personal information with the pictured surgeon. The participant ranked all images from most to least confident in the second part and the last section obtained demographic information from the patients. Surveys were scored using a five-level Likert scale and a Friedman test was used to detect statistical significance when comparing all attires. Similarly, the white coat was preferred to casual attire in all categories (confidence: MD, 0.810 ± 0.921; smart: MD, 0.493 ± 0.801; surgical skill: MD, 0.640 ± 0.880; ability to discuss: MD, 0.564 ± 0.988; trust: MD, 0.545 ± 0.836; safety: MD, 0.581 ± 0.860; caring: MD, 0.479 ± 0.852; p \ 0.001 for all comparisons). For the female surgeon, white coat and scrubs were not different, however the white coat was preferred to business attire in four of seven categories. Casual clothing was widely disliked in all categories for surgeons (men and women). When attire was compared for confidence on a scale, the white coat ranked Each author certifies that he or she has no commercial associations (eg, consultancies, stock ownership, equity interest, patent/licensing arrangements, etc) that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article. All ICMJE Conflict of Interest Forms for authors and Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research 1 editors and board members are on file with the publication and can be viewed on request. Each author certifies that his or her institution approved or waived approval for the human protocol for this investigation and that all investigations were conducted in conformity with ethical principles of research. This study was performed at

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%