Emotionally evocative patients in the emergency department: a mixed methods investigation of providers' reported emotions and implications for patient safety | PSNet

Emotionally evocative patients in the emergency department: a mixed methods investigation of providers' reported emotions and implications for patient safety | PSNet

Emotionally evocative patients in the emergency department: a mixed methods investigation of providers' reported emotions and implications for patient safety.

BMJ Qual Saf. 2020.

Providers’ emotional state can affect clinical decision-making and patient safety. In this study, ED nurses and physicians recalled three patient experiences (an angry encounter, a positive encounter and a mental health encounter) and rated their emotions and engagement in the encounters and their perception of how their emotions impacted their decisions and behavior. Perceived patient safety risks were higher during angry and mental health encounters positive encounters were associated with perceptions of higher quality care. These findings highlight the importance of educating clinicians about emotional influences and how to manage them as well as the need for research to explore evidence-based interventions to mitigate emotion-induced patient safety risks.