What's Playing in Your Waiting Room? Patient and Provider Stress and the Impact of Waiting Room Media

Abstract

Patients enter the healthcare space shouldering a lot of personal stress. Concurrently, health care providers and staff are managing their own personalstressors as well as workplace stressors. As stress can negatively affect the patient–provider experience and cognitive function of both individuals, it is imperative to try to uplift the health care environment for all. Part of the healthcare environmental psychology strategy to reduce stress often includes televisions in waiting rooms, cafeterias, and elsewhere, with the intent to distract the viewer and make waiting easier. Although well-intentioned, many select programming which can induce stress (eg, news). In contrast, as positive media can induce desirable changes in mood, it is possible to use it to decrease stress and uplift viewers, including staff. Positive media includes both nature media, which can relax and calm viewers and kindness media, which uplifts viewers, induces calm, and promotes interpersonal connection and generosity. Careful consideration of waiting room media can affect the patient–provider experience.

Primary Care Patients’ and Staff’s Perceptions of Self-Rooming as Alternative to Waiting Rooms

“…This is consistent with research suggesting that the emotions and behaviors of other patients in the waiting room may increase a patient's stress before the visit. 12,13 Our findings suggest that with some exceptions to be investigated in future work as described below, most patients are able and willing to find their own exam room and that this may honor their sense of autonomy. Our study therefore demonstrates that there may have previously been missed opportunities for widespread adoption of self-rooming, beyond the obvious safety advantages of not grouping patients in the same space to avoid contagion during and beyond a pandemic.…”

Kindness Isn’t Just about Being Nice: The Value Proposition of Kindness as Viewed through the Lens of Incivility in the Healthcare Workplace

“…As an occupational hazard, doctors, nurses, and many other providers are tasked with making decisions about someone else’s health while simultaneously being burdened in a high-demand-low agency setting. Providers must also manage the highly contagious emotions of their patients, many of whom port their stressors into an office visit [ 15 , 16 ].…”

Enhancing patient well-being in oncology waiting rooms: a pilot field experiment on the emotional impact of virtual forest therapy

“…Many patients express a desire to leave the hospital as soon as possible without any unnecessary delays. Waiting can often lead to increased frustration, anger, fear, and anxiety, which can, in turn, intensify the perception of physical pain and negative psychological symptoms (Lamba et al, 2020;Fryburg, 2021). A classic example of this phenomenon is "white coat hypertension, " observed in 15 to 30% of patients (Franklin et al, 2013).…”

“…A classic example of this phenomenon is "white coat hypertension, " observed in 15 to 30% of patients (Franklin et al, 2013). Stress in the waiting room naturally impacts patient behavior, potentially negatively influencing the patient-physician interaction as well (Fryburg, 2021).…”

“…Television is a commonly used communication channel in waiting rooms (Fryburg, 2021). Because the human eye instinctively and involuntarily gravitates towards movement, the TV screen plays a crucial role in shaping the waiting room ambiance, capturing greater attention than stationary images or wall decorations (Wolfe and Horowitz, 2017).…”