Researchers at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle identified a set of emotion words that can serve as a basis for patient-experience reporting, according to a study published in Health Care: The Journal of Delivery Science and Innovation.
The study aimed to gather words that express positive, negative and neutral emotions to improve experience-based design work in healthcare.
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Researchers administered a survey to patients, patients’ families and healthcare workers that asked them to rate 67 words as either positive, negative or neutral. Researchers compiled a final word list using the words that had at least an 80 percent agreement rate from all respondents on the emotional connotation of the word.
Twenty-three words had at least an 80 percent agreement of positive classification, including words such as joyful, confident, valued, hopeful and pleased. Eighteen words, including disrespected, resentful, jealous, insecure and ignored, had at least an 80 percent agreement of negative classification. No words had an 80 percent agreement of neutral classification, but researchers said they felt it was important to include one neutral word in the final set, so they chose “okay” since it had the highest agreement. Twenty-six words did not gather an 80 percent agreement of classification and were excluded from the final word list.
Researchers say experience-based design is becoming a prominent tool in understanding patient experience in healthcare but requires a standardized vocabulary to ensure patients, families and healthcare workers are accurately understanding one another. Using words that eliminate such emotional variability can contribute to building patient-centered, experience-based design healthcare, they say.
The final word list is published with the study.
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