Breast cancer patients’ trust in physicians: The impact of patients’ perception of physicians’ communication behaviors and hospital organizational climate

ObjectiveTo examine whether patients’ perception of a hospital's organizational climate has an impact on their trust in physicians after accounting for physicians’ communication behaviors as perceived by the patients and patient characteristics.MethodsPatients undergoing treatment in breast centers in the German state of North Rhein-Westphalia in 2006 were asked to complete a standardized postal questionnaire. Disease characteristics were then added by the medical personnel. Multiple linear regressions were performed.Results80.5% of the patients responded to the survey. 37% of the variance in patients’ trust in physicians can be explained by the variables included in our final model (N = 2226; R2 adj. = 0.372; p < 0.001). Breast cancer patients’ trust in their physicians is strongly associated with their perception of a hospital's organizational climate. The impact of their perception of physicians’ communication behaviors persists after introducing hospital organizational characteristics. Perceived physician accessibility shows the strongest association with trust.ConclusionsA trusting physician–patient relationship among breast cancer patients is associated with both the perceived quality of the hospital organizational climate and perceived physicians’ communication behaviors.Practice implicationsWith regard to clinical organization, efforts should be put into improving the organizational climate and making physicians more accessible to patients.