How to Dress up in Neuro-urology Department

Patient satisfaction with care contribute to therapeutic compliance and adherence leading to better outcomes.Various factors impact on patient satisfaction as communication with nurses and doctors, pain management, timeless of assistance, explanation of medications administered, cleanliness of room and bathroom, discharge planning, noise level at night…ith increasingly consultation requests and delays and rushed patient-physician encounter, the ability to gain a patient's confidence to optimize health outcomes has become a real challenge. Petrilli and al. described the role of physician attire on patients perceptions and highlight its importance in patient confidence, trust and satisfaction.Therefore, targeting physician attire to improve the patient experience has become a topic of interest.

In a neuro-urology department with outpatients services and additional explorations (urodynamic, anorectal manometry, electromyographic testing), the physician attire is an outstanding issue because of this non-surgical activity but its procedural therapies.

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to examine patient perceptions and preferences regarding physician dress code in a neuro-urology department.

In this study, the investigators develop a questionnaire based on expert meetings and literature review of the role of physician attire on patient preference and satisfaction. This lead to a short questionnaire with 2 sections and 4 questions. In the first section, 3 photographs of different physician attires will be presented: casual attire with white coat, scrubs and scrubs with white coat. The face of the physician will be hidden, pose lighting and environment will be similar. Respondents will be asked to select their ideal attire and to mention if any attire shock them. The second section sought respondents' general opinions regarding physician attire, its importance and relation with patient satisfaction.

Surveys will be filled in a neuro-urology department of a university hospital in France. The questionnaire will be administered to adult patients who will be consulting or adminting for a one-day- hospitalization. The patient will fill the survey alone or with help from any relative accompanying him. The research staff will deliver and collect the completed form. Demographic data (age, sex, occupational category, education level), presence of neurological disease, patient already know of the department or first visit, reason of the external consultation or of the one-day-hospitalization will be collected.

Statistical analysis will be carried out using R 3.2.3 software (R Development Core Team, http://www.R-project.org) and R studio version 1.0.136.

Descriptive statistics (means, percentage) and SD will be used to describe the population and the responses to the questionnaire. Differences between the rating and the patients' characteristics will be assessed using analysis of variance or Chi2 tests. A p value of less than 0.05 will be considered statistically significant.

This study was approved by a local ethics committee. No identifying information was collected from those that completed the study.

Inclusion criteria

• Appointment in neuro-urology department

Exclusion criteria

• refusing to participate