The Relationship of Racial Concordance of the Health Care Provider and Patient with Prenatal Patient-provider Communication and Satisfaction

Abstract

Background: The purpose of this study was twofold: to determine if racial disconcordance of the health care provider and the patient is associated with difficulties leading to inadequate prenatal patient-provider communication and low satisfaction with the prenatal provider, and if communication was related to satisfaction. Methods: Analysis was completed using secondary data from surveys of 358 low-income new mothers that used. Two communication scales and one satisfaction scale was utilized. Results: The findings indicated that racial concordance is highly related to patient-provider communication. Mothers that were racially concordant with their providers gave higher ratings of communication with their provider than racially disconcordant patients did (F=4.863, p<.01). Communication was moderately to strongly associated (Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient .828, p<.01) with satisfaction regardless of race or racial concordance. Conclusions: Health educators could work to develop interventions that would help buildpatient-provider communication patterns for physicians and other health professionals that allow for differences in racial concordance/ disconcordance. These interventions may help to improve birth outcomes.