L. Perkins1, S. Munter2, L. Adams1, K. Black1, I. Guajardo2, T. Costantini1, J. Doucet1, J. Santorelli1 1University Of California – San Diego, Division Of Trauma, Surgical Critical Care, Burns, And Acute Care Surgery, San Diego, CA, USA 2University Of California – San Diego, Surgery, San Diego, CA, USA
Introduction:
Clear communication by health care professionals is vital for effective shared decision making and trauma-informed care. The COVID era has necessitated mask-wearing by inpatient providers; however, the impact masks have on the acute care surgeon-patient relationship has yet to be defined. We hypothesized that mask-wearing, while necessary, has a negative impact by acting as a barrier to communication, empathy, and trust between patients and surgeons.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study was performed by administering a written survey in English or Spanish to trauma, emergency general surgery, burn and surgical critical care inpatients age ≥ 18 years at a University Level 1 Trauma Center between 1/2023 and 6/2023. In addition to demographic data and prior hospital experience, patients were asked seven questions about their perception of mask effect on interactions with their surgery providers. Responses were scored on a 5-point Likert scale and binarized for multivariate logistic regression, with alpha value set at 0.05.
Results:
180 acute care surgery patients completed the survey. The patients were 66% male, 44% Hispanic, and 17% Spanish speaking, with a median age of 45-54 years. A third of patients agreed that surgeon mask-wearing made it harder to understand the details of their surgical procedure and made them less comfortable in giving consent. 24% agreed that it was harder to trust their provider; increasing age was associated with lower levels of trust, OR 1.35 (CI 1.08-1.69, p=0.009). Female patients were more affected by masks in understanding procedures. Findings were consistent among patients of different sex, race, language spoken at home, inpatient level of care, and history of hospitalization before the COVID pandemic.
Conclusion:
Mask-wearing, while important, has a negative impact on the patient-surgeon relationship across all patient groups. Providers must be conscious of this effect while wearing masks and strive to optimize communication with patients to ensure high quality trauma-informed care.
