The effect of touch on patients' estimates of time in the waiting and examination rooms.
This study examined the accuracy of patient estimates of time spent in the waiting room, examining room, and with the physician. In addition, the impact of physician touch (such as a handshake in greeting) upon those estimates was determined. Patients were noted to be quite accurate in estimates of waiting room time. Examining room waiting time tended to be markedly underestimated, while physician contact time was markedly overestimated. The overestimation of physician contact time was positively related to the number of interruptions requiring the physician to leave the examining room. Minimal touch in greeting had no effect on estimates of waiting room time but did significantly magnify the underestimation of examining room waiting time. Patients who were touched did, on an average, overestimate physician contact time to a greater extent than those who were not touched; however, this difference did not reach statistical significance.
D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D003258:Consumer Behavior; D006801:Humans; D010361:Patients / Q000523:psychology*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011897:Random Allocation; D013998:Time Perception; D014110:Touch