Psychological Safety in Medication Conversations

According to the PLOS One study (El-Kotob et al., 2026) PLOS One, patients describe psychological safety in medication conversations as built from three interlocking needs: feeling heard (belonging), understanding medication information (learning), and being invited into decisions (participating).

• 21 participants were interviewed or participated in focus groups between 01 May 2024 and 31 August 2024, as reported by El-Kotob et al. (2026).
• In the PLOS One sample, 19 of 21 participants were aged 40 or older, and 14 of 21 identified as White and 14 of 21 identified as women (El-Kotob et al., 2026).
• Participants linked respectful, contextualized medication communication to increased trust and reduced distress, while dismissive interactions led to disengagement; one participant said, "I was disbelieved and dismissed" (participant P02 quoted in El-Kotob et al., 2026).
• Practical qualitative research should code for belonging, learning, and participation and report demographics and dates explicitly to support transferability (El-Kotob et al., 2026).

The PLOS One article (El-Kotob et al., 2026) conducted a secondary deductive qualitative analysis of interviews and focus groups to examine psychological safety specifically in medication-related clinical encounters.

El-Kotob et al. (2026) recruited adults in Ontario who had taken at least one prescribed medication for three months or more, used purposive, convenience, and snowball sampling, and collected data via Zoom or telephone between 01 May 2024 and 31 August 2024.

The PLOS One team used the Patient Psychological Safety (PPS) framework, which operationalizes psychological safety with three constructs: Patient Belonging, Patient Learning, and Patient Participating, and the analysts coded transcripts into a matrix aligned with those constructs (El-Kotob et al., 2026).

Researchers should code for the three PPS domains (belonging, learning, participating) because the PLOS One study (El-Kotob et al., 2026) shows these domains capture the patient experience in medication conversations.

• Design interviews to surface contextualized medication information needs: El-Kotob et al. (2026) found participants wanted both clear facts and explanations of how information would affect decisions.
• Report dates and sample counts explicitly: El-Kotob et al. (2026) published exact collection dates (01 May–31 Aug 2024) and counts (n = 21), which supports auditability and temporal context.
• Attend to intersectionality and recruitment bias: El-Kotob et al. (2026) acknowledge most participants were older and White, so purposive oversampling of underrepresented groups improves transferability.
• Use a matrix or codebook aligned to the PPS framework: El-Kotob et al. (2026) used a deductive coding matrix, which supports reproducible thematic categorization and cross-case comparison.

The PLOS One study (El-Kotob et al., 2026) demonstrates that psychological safety in medication conversations depends on belonging, learning, and participation, and that qualitative methods should report dates, counts, and demographic context to support transparency.

AI-enabled qualitative analysis can accelerate reproducible coding, frequency tables, and cross-segment comparisons while retaining human oversight for interpretive validity, as recommended by the study's methods.

If you want to speed thematic synthesis of medication-related interviews and produce transparent evidence for clinicians or policy teams, Try Evidano for free.