Premium
Impact of the physical environment on patient outcomes of genetic counseling: An exploratory study
Author(s) -
Morris Emily,
Best Jacob,
Inglis Angela,
Austin Jehannine
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of genetic counseling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1573-3599
pISSN - 1059-7700
DOI - 10.1002/jgc4.1111
Subject(s) - medicine , genetic counseling , naturalistic observation , exploratory research , clinical psychology , family medicine , physical therapy , psychology , social psychology , genetics , sociology , anthropology , biology
The psychology literature shows that the physical space in which counseling sessions are conducted influences outcomes of the interaction. However, this phenomenon has not been quantitatively explored in genetic counseling (GC). Through retrospective review of naturalistic data from a psychiatric GC clinic (where data on patient outcomes are routinely tracked from pre‐ to 1 month post‐appointment using the Genetic Counseling Outcome Scale (GCOS, empowerment) and the Illness Management Self Efficacy Scale (IMSES), we tested the hypotheses that patients seen in comfortably furnished counseling (C‐type) rooms would have greater increases in (a) empowerment and (b) self‐efficacy after GC than patients seen in medically oriented (M‐type) rooms. We matched each patient with complete GCOS and/or IMSES who was seen in a C‐type room between February 2012 and December 2017 to four M‐type room controls where possible. We used t tests to compare change in outcome scale scores between groups. There were no significant differences in change in scores between patients seen in M‐type (GCOS n = 84, IMSES n = 56) and C‐type rooms (GCOS n = 22, IMSES n = 18) ( p = 0.241, d = 0.26, and p = 0.602, d = 0.14, respectively). The effect sizes we demonstrate allow estimation of sample size calculations for the design of future prospective studies.