Effects of patient-centered communication on patient engagement, health related quality of life, perception of service quality and patient satisfaction in cancer patients

Patient-centered communication is a type of communication between the service provider and the patient that takes into account the needs, perspectives and individual experiences of patients, provides opportunities for patients to participate in their care, and strengthens the communication relationship. Patient-centered communication in cancer treatment helps patients in various ways, such as receiving difficult news and managing the emotional impact of life-threatening cancer, understanding complex medical information, communicating with multiple healthcare professionals, coping with uncertainty, making decisions about their health, and adopting health-promoting behaviors. Patient-centered communication has effects on health outcomes and is influenced by various factors. It was aimed to examine socio-demographic, disease-related, cancer treatment access, treatment use and relationship factors that may affect patient-centered communication and to reveal the effects of patient-centered communication on patient engagement, health-related quality of life, perception of service quality and patient satisfaction. The study was conducted with 312 cancer patients who were being treated in a training and research hospital affiliated to the Ministry of Health in Diyarbakır. SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 22.0 programs were used to analyze the research data. It was statistically revealed that gender, cancer type, cancer stage, treatment duration, physical and mental health status, frequency of application to the institution, type of application, trust in the physician and communication duration variables were associated with patient-centered communication and its sub-dimensions, and patient-centered communication positively affected patient engagement, health-related quality of life, service quality perception and patient satisfaction. In this study, it is emphasized that patient-centered communication positively affects various health outcomes and suggestions for improving provider-patient communication are presented.