From Numerical to Empathy: The dual impact of psychological contracts in Doctor-Patient communication

Xinru Wang¹Yating Chen¹Yi Yu²Huan Jiang¹Jinyan Song¹Weixian Liang¹Qiang Zhou^1*Liang Ying^1*

• ¹Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, China
• ²Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China

Objective: To investigate how the presence or absence of psychological contracts and different formats of probabilistic da ta representation influence healthcare professionals' pain empathy and probability estimation bias in simulated doctor–pati ent communication contexts. Methods: We included 60 healthcare professionals with the same mathematical ability and divided them into two groups to complete the probability estimation bias task of decision events and the classification task of pain non-pain pictures with and without psychological contracts. The data are analyzed by generalized estimation equation (Gee). Results: The fulfillment of psychological contracts significantly affects the level of empathy for pain[0.3(95% CI 0.1, 0.4), p < 0.001], and the probability bias of decision events with an impact of [19.2 (95% CI 8.5, 29.8), p < 0.001] in small probability events and [−21.2 (95% CI −41.7, −0.5 ), p < 0.05] in large probability events. Conclusions: The establishment of psychological contract reduced the difference between the different data representation forms, significantly improved the pain empathy of the healthcare professionals, and reduced the probability estimation bias of risk decision events.