Managing patient expectations through understanding health service experiences

The ever-increasing demand for health care services, together with heightened expectations for quality care, continue to put pressures on health care professionals. In this editorial, we introduce our perspective on managing patient expectations through gaining research insights on health service experiences of patients and their support network. Drawing upon research from social psychology, we examine the types of threat that typically confront patients during health care service experiences, and their subsequent coping strategies. We call for enhanced focus on social science research for effective delivery of high-quality health care services.