Background: Communication of healthcare professionals (HCPs) plays an important role in patient therapy experiences. According to Self-Determination Theory, HCPs’ motivating interaction styles foster these experiences. However, empirical evidence on how patients perceive their HCP’s interaction styles and how these perceptions relate to their basic psychological needs, therapy motivation, and therapy adherence remains limited. Methods: This cross-sectional study included patients who received physiotherapy or occupational therapy (N=346). Participants completed valid and reliable questionnaires to assess their perceptions of their HCP’s motivating (autonomy-support, structure) and demotivating (control, chaos) interaction styles, their basic psychological needs (satisfaction, frustration), motivation toward therapy (intrinsic motivation, integrated, identified, introjected, external regulation, amotivation), and therapy adherence. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)-analysis. Results: The SEM analysis revealed that perceived autonomy-support was positively related to need satisfaction and negatively to need frustration. Perceived control was positively related to need frustration. Need satisfaction, in turn, was positively related to intrinsic motivation, integrated, identified and introjected regulation, while need frustration showed a negative relationship with intrinsic motivation and introjected regulation, and a positive association with external regulation and amotivation. Integrated and identified regulations were positively related to adherence, while external regulation and amotivation showed negative associations. Conclusion: These findings suggest the importance of HCPs adopting an autonomy-supportive interaction style to foster patients’ need satisfaction, promote self-determined motivation, and enhance therapy adherence. Conversely, controlling interaction style undermines patient therapy experiences by increasing need frustration, reducing self-determined motivation and lowering adherence. It is recommended to focus on these components during training. Plain Language Summary: What is this summary about? This research gathered insights among people receiving physiotherapy or occupational therapy. The study examined how patients experience the motivating and demotivating interaction styles of their therapist. It also looked at how these experiences relate to patients’ basic psychological needs (feeling supported or frustrated in their autonomy, competence, and relatedness), their motivation for therapy, and therapy adherence. What are the key takeaways? Patients who experienced their therapist as autonomy-supportive experienced more satisfaction of their basic psychological needs and less frustration. Patients who felt controlled by their therapist experienced more frustration.When patients felt their basic needs were satisfied, they were more qualitatively motivated, for example, because they found therapy meaningful or personally valuable. When their needs were frustrated, they felt more pressured or even unmotivated.The type of motivation matters: patients experiencing more qualitative or self-determined forms of motivation were more likely to adhere to their treatment. Those who felt pressured or unmotivated were less likely to adhere. What are the main conclusions? The research concludes that an autonomy-supportive approach is related to more positive patient experiences, stronger self-determined motivation, and better therapy adherence, while a controlling approach is related to more less favorable variables.This highlights the importance of healthcare professionals’ communication from the patient’s perspective. Keywords: self-determination theory, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, patient, motivation, basic psychological needs
Hesters et al. (Fri,) studied this question.