Dataset Information

Gender, Soft Skills, and Patient Experience in Online Physician Reviews: A Large-Scale Text Analysis.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Online physician reviews are an important source of information for prospective patients. In addition, they represent an untapped resource for studying the effects of gender on the doctor-patient relationship. Understanding gender differences in online reviews is important because it may impact the value of those reviews to patients. Documenting gender differences in patient experience may also help to improve the doctor-patient relationship. This is the first large-scale study of physician reviews to extensively investigate gender bias in online reviews or offer recommendations for improvements to online review systems to correct for gender bias and aid patients in selecting a physician. OBJECTIVE:This study examines 154,305 reviews from across the United States for all medical specialties. Our analysis includes a qualitative and quantitative examination of review content and physician rating with regard to doctor and reviewer gender. METHODS:A total of 154,305 reviews were sampled from Google Place reviews. Reviewer and doctor gender were inferred from names. Reviews were coded for overall patient experience (negative or positive) by collapsing a 5-star scale and coded for general categories (process, positive/negative soft skills), which were further subdivided into themes. Computational text processing methods were employed to apply this codebook to the entire data set, rendering it tractable to quantitative methods. Specifically, we estimated binary regression models to examine relationships between physician rating, patient experience themes, physician gender, and reviewer gender). RESULTS:Female reviewers wrote 60% more reviews than men. Male reviewers were more likely to give negative reviews (odds ratio [OR] 1.15, 95% CI 1.10-1.19; P<.001). Reviews of female physicians were considerably more negative than those of male physicians (OR 1.99, 95% CI 1.94-2.14; P<.001). Soft skills were more likely to be mentioned in the reviews written by female reviewers and about female physicians. Negative reviews of female doctors were more likely to mention candor (OR 1.61, 95% CI 1.42-1.82; P<.001) and amicability (OR 1.63, 95% CI 1.47-1.90; P<.001). Disrespect was associated with both female physicians (OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.35-1.51; P<.001) and female reviewers (OR 1.27, 95% CI 1.19-1.35; P<.001). Female patients were less likely to report disrespect from female doctors than expected from the base ORs (OR 1.19, 95% CI 1.04-1.32; P=.008), but this effect overrode only the effect for female reviewers. CONCLUSIONS:This work reinforces findings in the extensive literature on gender differences and gender bias in patient-physician interaction. Its novel contribution lies in highlighting gender differences in online reviews. These reviews inform patients' choice of doctor and thus affect both patients and physicians. The evidence of gender bias documented here suggests review sites may be improved by providing information about gender differences, controlling for gender when presenting composite ratings for physicians, and helping users write less biased reviews.

SUBMITTER: Dunivin Z

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7426798 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Gender, Soft Skills, and Patient Experience in Online Physician Reviews: A Large-Scale Text Analysis.

Dunivin Zackary Z Zadunayski Lindsay L Baskota Ujjwal U Siek Katie K Mankoff Jennifer J

Journal of medical Internet research 20200730 7

<h4>Background</h4>Online physician reviews are an important source of information for prospective patients. In addition, they represent an untapped resource for studying the effects of gender on the doctor-patient relationship. Understanding gender differences in online reviews is important because it may impact the value of those reviews to patients. Documenting gender differences in patient experience may also help to improve the doctor-patient relationship. This is the first large-scale stud ...[more]

PMID: 32729844

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundWeb-based reviews of physicians have become exceedingly popular among health care consumers since the early 2010s. A factor that can potentially influence these reviews is the gender of the physician, because the physician's gender has been found to influence patient-physician communication. Our study is among the first to conduct a rigorous longitudinal analysis to study the effects of the gender of physicians on their reviews, after accounting for several important clinical factors, including patient risk, physician specialty, and temporal factors, using time fixed effects. In addition, this study is among the first to study the possible gender bias in web-based reviews using statewide data from Alabama, a predominantly rural state with high Medicaid and Medicare use.ObjectiveThis study conducts a longitudinal empirical investigation of the relationship between physician gender and their web-based reviews using data across the state of Alabama, after accounting for patient risk and temporal effects.MethodsWe created a unique data set by combining data from web-based physician reviews from the popular physician review website, RateMDs, and clinical data from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the state of Alabama. We used longitudinal econometric specifications to conduct an econometric analysis, while controlling for several important clinical and review characteristics across four rating dimensions (helpfulness, knowledge, staff, and punctuality). The overall rating and these four rating dimensions from RateMDs were used as the dependent variables, and physician gender was the key explanatory variable in our panel regression models.ResultsThe panel used to conduct the main econometric analysis included 1093 physicians. After controlling for several clinical and review factors, the physician random effects specifications showed that male physicians receive better web-based ratings than female physicians. Coefficients and corresponding SEs and P values of the binary variable GenderFemale (1 for female physicians and 0 otherwise) with different rating variables as outcomes were as follows: OverallRating (coefficient -0.194, SE 0.060; P=.001), HelpfulnessRating (coefficient -0.221, SE 0.069; P=.001), KnowledgeRating (coefficient -0.230, SE 0.065; P<.001), StaffRating (coefficient -0.123, SE 0.062; P=.049), and PunctualityRating (coefficient -0.200, SE 0.067; P=.003). The negative coefficients indicate a bias toward male physicians versus female physicians for aforementioned rating variables.ConclusionsThis study found that female physicians receive lower web-based ratings than male physicians even after accounting for several clinical characteristics associated with the physicians and temporal effects. Although the magnitude of the coefficients of GenderFemale was relatively small, they were statistically significant. This study provides support to the findings on gender bias in the existing health care literature. We contribute to the existing literature by conducting a study using data across the state of Alabama and using a longitudinal econometric analysis, along with incorporating important clinical and review controls associated with the physicians.

Dataset Information

Gender, Soft Skills, and Patient Experience in Online Physician Reviews: A Large-Scale Text Analysis.

Publications

Gender, Soft Skills, and Patient Experience in Online Physician Reviews: A Large-Scale Text Analysis.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets