Hospital clinical research activity, rather than staff motivational engagement, significantly links effective staff communication and favourable patient feedback; a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objectives: Healthcare staff behaviour can impact on the performance of hospitals. Staff involvement in clinical research can have a wider positive effect on patients and hospital performance. The aim of this study was to further assess the putative positive effect of clinical research activity on patient feedback with a more recent dataset, and if staff's motivational engagement levels may impact on aspects of in-patient feedback.

Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted with (survey) data from 2019; the sample was 129 English National Health Service hospital Trusts. Sources were the national in-patient survey, national staff survey (for staff motivational engagement), and research activity (based on Trust size-corrected National Institute for Health Research records data). Spearman correlation analyses were conducted (minimum rho value 0.25, p-value<0.005), followed by principal component analysis (score cut-off 0.2).

Results: Initial correlation analyses identified eleven in-patient survey questions where better in-patient feedback was associated with increased clinical research activity, and only three questions linked with higher degree of staff motivational engagement. Subsequent principal component analysis confirmed that increased staff engagement is mainly linked to overall Trust performance such as staff levels, whereas staff in research-active hospitals provided in-patients with sufficient information - including on medication - and did well answering patient questions.

Conclusions: Staff involvement in clinical research is associated with better patient feedback. Clear and thorough information provision to patients, may be a mechanism for improved patient outcomes including mortality.

Keywords: British National Health Service (NHS); Encuesta sobre atención sanitaria; Healthcare survey; Implicación del personal; Investigación y desarrollo; National Health Service (NHS) británico; Patient reported outcome; Research and development; Resultados reportados por el paciente; Staff engagement.