Patient Expectations Predicting Medical Requests Based on Status Characteristics

This research I conduct uses the Patient’s Likely Expectations and Satisfaction in care Survey (PLEASS 2007) to analyze how patients who have expectations about medical experiences request these based on status characteristic differences between them and their doctors. Previous research shows that people interact differently based on their race, gender, and level of education, and this has effects on the medical encounter. I aim to understand how status characteristic identities of race, gender, and education affect how patients with specific expectations make requests about medications, tests, or referrals. I control for marital status, income, visits to the doctor in the past 6 months, doctor’s years practicing, and length of visit. I used a logistic regression analysis to predict these effects on the outcome variable, which was if the experience was requested. I base this research on Status Characteristics Theory, and I restructured the PLEASS 2007 so that expectations were the observations of analysis rather than the patients themselves. For medications, patients and doctors having the same racial and educational status resulted in the highest predicted probabilities of making a request that the patient previously expressed. A woman patient had the highest predicted probability of making a medication request to a man doctor. For tests, the opposite pattern was true. Same gender resulted in the highest predicted probability of requesting tests whereas the doctor having the higher race and educational status resulted in a higher predicted probability of a test request. For referrals, patients and doctors having the same racial, gender, and educational statuses resulted in the highest predicted probabilities of requesting experiences. Keywords: medical requests, status characteristics theory, medical expectation