A new study from researchers at the University of North Carolina suggests that patients are having trouble communicating and building trust with their surgeons when they cannot see their entire face due to COVID-19 masking requirements.
This disconnect is affecting, not only how surgeons are viewed and rates by their patients, but also how well the patient does during and after surgery, they explained.
“At beginning of pandemic I had a patient say, ‘Dr. Kapadia, it’s odd you’ve taken out a big part of my colon and I don’t even know what you look like,” Muneera Kapadia, M.D., senior study author and associate professor of surgery in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said.
“It made me realize we don’t have much information on how masks are affecting surgeon-patient communication and relationships.”
In the study of 200 patients at 15 clinics, Kapadia and his colleagues investigated how the new masking protocols are affecting a patient’s perception and trust of their surgeon during pre-operative meetings.
Surgeons were randomized to either wear clear or covered masks for each new patient clinic visit. After the meeting, patients were asked to complete a verbal survey which included validated Clinician and Group Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems questions as well as additional questions about surgeon empathy and trust and the patient’s impression of the surgeon’s mask.
Overall, patients said communication was better when surgeons wore a clear mask. This suggests, the researchers say, that not being able to see the surgeon’s face could be negatively impacting the surgeon-patient relationship.
“When surgeons wore clear masks as opposed to traditional masks, patients rated their surgeon significantly higher in how well they provided an understandable explanation, knew the patient’s history, demonstrated empathy, and built trust,” said first author Ian Kratzke, M.D., a resident in the department of surgery at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.
“Our face is how we connect with other people,” Kapadia added. “We react to people with facial cues, which are being covered by the masks, and that’s having a big impact on communication.”
“We need to be cognizant that patients are having more difficulty connecting with us as providers. I think knowing that before interacting with them will help mitigate the issue by reminding us to spend more time getting to know our patients and making sure they understand what we are trying to convey.”
The study, “Effect of Clear vs. Standard Covered Masks on Communication With Patients During Surgical Clinic Encounters,” was published online in JAMA Surgery on March 11, 2021.
