Patients and surgeons can feel uncomfortable discussing the effectiveness of coping strategies, psychological distress, and stressful circumstances. It has been suggested that patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) facilitate the discussion of factors associated with increased symptoms and disability. 

We studied the effect of providing feedback to patients regarding their coping strategies and illness behavior on patient satisfaction and patient-physician communication in orthopedic surgery (1). We found that feedback was associated with increased discussion of illness behavior, less effective coping strategies, and personal factors (age, marital status, and work status) were more important factors, with no effect on patient satisfaction. 

References

1.Mellema JJ, O’Connor CM, Overbeek CL, Hageman MG, Ring D. The effect of feedback regarding coping strategies and illness behavior on hand surgery patient satisfaction and communication: a randomized controlled trial. Hand (N Y). 2015 Sep;10(3):503-11. doi: 10.1007/s11552-015-9742-2. PubMed PMID: 26330786; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4551630.