Physicians' self-assessed empathy levels do not correlate with patients' assessments.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Empathy is a fundamental humanistic component of patient care which facilitates efficient and patient-centered clinical encounters. Despite being the principal recipient of physician empathy little work on how patients perceive/report receiving empathy from their physicians has been undertaken. In the context of doctor-patient interactions, knowledge about empathy has mostly originated from physicians' perspectives and has been developed from studies using self-assessment instruments. In general, self-assessment may not correlate well with the reality observed by others.

Objectives

To investigate: 1-the relationship between physicians' self-assessed empathy and patients' measures of physicians' empathy; 2 -Environmental factors that could influence patients' perce

SUBMITTER: Bernardo MO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5979004 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature