Emotional Support and its Medical and Healthcare Implications: A Mind and Body Approach

Mosad Zineldin, Tamer Hassan and Valentina Vasicheva

Background and Objective: There are associations between emotional support, morbidity and mortality. Emotions understanding and management of both Physicians and patientsare overlooked in research. The researches of the challenge facing medical and healthcare sittings when treating patients and their safety as a human experience are still inconclusive. This study aims to examine the correlation between emotional support and medical and healthcare implications. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study surveyed 223 inpatients of several public and private hospitals. To examine the overall patient safety and emotional support, a standard 5Qs questionnaire of healthcare quality and safety including some emotional support dimensions was used. Results: The highest means given for emotional support dimension “Empathy” with means of 3.78 (±0.81). The total mean of emotional support was 3.48 (±0.69) and the total mean of overall patient safety was 3.58 (±0.68). Patients in this study felt that they received inadequate personalized emotional support. The lowest mean score reported by the patients was the dimension being present and available of the healthcare with means of 3.32 (±0.86) and the dimension humor with means of 3.33 (±0.85). Ambient Environmental (A) had the most significant influence on the overall patient safety (β = 0.22 and p<0.0) followed by Supportive gestures (S) (β = 0.21 and p<0.0). Conclusion: Increasing the attention paid to the emotional support dimensions of patient care will lead to better understanding the Mind/Body interrelation, improving the medical and healthcare implications and speeding up the recovery from the illness.

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