Great-presentation!-478243496_4256x2832.jpegPatients’ Preference for Physician Attire

Since the Mandatory Infection Prevention And Control (IPAC)  regulatory meeting held this pasts week, and our very interesting discussion on attire, The British Medical Journal (BMJ) Open 2018 published a study that found that physician attire is important to patients and influences their perception of care.

So what should you wear to consistently rank highest in areas of patients perception studied in this article, including being rated the most knowledgable, trustworthy, caring, and approachable?

First, a little background on the study and why this is crucially important for our delivery of care at Georgian Dental®. In more than 4,000 hospitalized patients surveyed regarding their opinion of male and female physicians in various forms of attire:

  • over half (53%) of patients indicated that physician attire was important to them during care.
  • Patient perception were significantly higher for a specific attire for male and female doctors, rating the highest amongst compared to all other attire configurations in areas such as the physicians’ knowledge, trustworthiness, Caring, Approchability and their feeling of Comfort with the physician.

So what form of attire was rated the highest, and what attire ensemble was ranked the lowest on all those factors? In an article written for BMJ Open (Petrilli CM, et al. BMJ Open 2018;8:e021239. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2017-021239), patient perception were studied across 7 different attire ensembles:

  1. Casual
  2. Casual with white coat
  3. Scrubs
  4. Scrubs with white coat
  5. Formal (shirt, black slacks, tie optional
  6. Formal with white coat
  7. Business attire.

The study found that physicans were rated the most knowledgable, trustworthy, caring, and approachable when they wore formal attire with white coat. This was true when the physician was either male or female. Whereas the lowest ranked is physician in casual attire.

Scrubs with white coat ranked 2nd, after formal attire without white coat. A scrubs only attire is preferred for emergency physicians and surgeons. The lowest ranked was casual attire.

The attire ensembles ranked in terms overall patient’s perception from highest to lowest are:

  1. Formal with white coat
  2. Scrubs with white coat (which beat out the next item by only .1 SD)
  3. Formal attire
  4. Casual with white coat
  5. Scrubs
  6. Business attire
  7. Casual

With Public Health Ontario (PHO) requirements for the entire clinical team to wear white coats, stay tuned to your managers organizing a group buy from a medical uniform supplier in the near future.

So to summarize, the Georgian Dental® attire policy will be as follows:

  • Doctors and Registered Dental hygienists must all wear formal attire (white shirt, black slacks, tie optional, and white coat)
  • Clinical support team members should wear AT LEAST scrubs and white coat (mandated by PHO)
  • Administrative Professionals must wear formal attire. Definitely avoid casual (or else you’ll be sent home to change) or business suits (somewhat acceptable but – this ranks only 2nd from the bottom, which is scrubs attire)

Unless you’re working in EMS, don’t wear casual or scrubs attire nd remember to keep your name tags on at all times.

 

Dr. Tan