Dutch researchers have asked a question, ‘what happens to medical care when the patient is a jerk’, in two latest studies. They also gave an answer to the query: ‘Disruptive’ patients could receive worse care from physicians.

The results aren’t perfect as the researchers have tested the response of physicians in fictional vignettes, and not in real-life encounters. The findings still suggest that patients who create a scene distract physicians from performing their jobs well.

Dr. Silvia Mamede, who worked on both studies, said that patients, who act disruptively, show disrespect or become aggressive, could provoke their doctors to make diagnostic mistakes.

Mamede, an associate professor with the Institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, said that an estimated of 15% patients treated in the office of doctors were aggressive, rude, overly demanding or distrustful. She said that such behaviors induce emotional reactions in doctors.

However, is it really that such patients receive worse care? Since long, physicians have been talking about this question, but researchers haven't studied the matter, as per Mamede.

The authors of the study might have monitored real doctors' visits for an answer, but Mamede mentioned that the idea would have been ‘virtually impossible’ as every case is not same.

The researchers instead developed vignettes regarding ‘neutral’ patients and disruptive patients, who do things like making often demands, don’t pay attention to the advice given by doctor and behave helpless. Thereafter, the researchers urged the physicians to diagnose the patients.

Dr. Donald Redelmeier, senior core scientist with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto, called the approach ‘feasible, ethical and reasonable’.

The studies haven’t given information related to how frequently the physicians got a diagnosis exact or totally missed it. They instead scored the diagnoses on the basis of if they were right, partially correct or wrong.