Doctors might be authority figures, but a new review suggests hospital patients feel more comfortable when their physician comes across as less imposing.

Getting to a patient’s eye level while talking about their diagnosis or care makes a huge difference, researchers found.

Sitting or crouching next to a patient’s bedside prompted more feelings of trust and satisfaction, and even helped patients recover better, according to results published recently in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

“We hope our work will bring more recognition to the significance of sitting and the general conclusion that patients appreciate it,” said lead researcher Dr. Nathan Houchens, an associate professor of medicine with the University of Michigan School of Medicine.

For the review, researchers analyzed results from 14 previous studies on the impact of a doctor’s posture when they’re at a patient’s bedside.

One study found that half of patients preferred talking to a sitting physician, while only 17% liked it when their doctor stood during a consultation.

Other studies indicated that medical professionals who sit with a patient prompt more positive impressions than those who stand.

For example, nurses who sat at bedside for three to five minutes at the start of each shift wound up improving patients’ perceptions of their communications.

Likewise, seated doctors had more patients who said the doctor “always” listens carefully to them and explains things in a way that’s easy to understand.

“It is conceivable that patients desire and expect their clinicians to share power during encounters,” the researchers wrote in their paper. “One way to even the hierarchy is through eye-level communication.”

“We postulate that this power sharing is particularly important to patients at times of high stress and acuity that are typified by the inpatient hospital environment,” researchers continued.

Unfortunately, there might be some resistance to this simple means of improving communication with patients.

Many studies noted that even when doctors were assigned to sit with their patients, they didn’t always do so, researchers said. That was particularly true if dedicated seating wasn’t available in a room.

Hospitals can help by making seating available and encouraging doctors to get at eye level, particularly senior physicians who serve as a role model for students and residents, researchers said.

The researchers said more studies are needed to better understand the effect of a doctor’s posture on patient confidence.

A recently launched University of Michigan study includes physician posture as something that could make hospitals more conducive to healing, researchers said.

Doctors in the study are encouraged to sit by bedsides, warmly greet patients as they enter the room, and ask questions about patients’ priorities and backgrounds during conversations.

Researchers will look for any differences in length of hospital stay, readmissions and patient satisfaction scores.

More information

UCLA has more on the importance of bedside manner.

SOURCE: University of Michigan, news release, July 26, 2024

Source: HealthDay