Empathy in family medicine

Abstract

AIM: Empathy is crucial in therapeutic relationships. An empathic relationship has several positive outcomes: improvement of doctor-patient relationship, increased satisfaction and diagnostic ability, and patients’ empowerment. This study aims to assess empathy levels in a Portuguese Primary Health Care Practice (PPHCP) and to verify the relation between doctor-patient empathy and socio-demographic characteristics. DESIGN: cross-sectional study LOCATION: a Portuguese Primary Health Care Practice located in Senhora da Hora, Matosinhos. PARTICIPANTS: patients registered in the PPHCC who went to an appointment with their Family Physician (FP) during the month of June 2009. METHODS: Empathy value measured through the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) questionnaire. Associations between variables were tested with nonparametric tests (Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis) and Pearson correlation. The adopted significance level was 0.05. RESULTS: A sample of 353 questionnaires was obtained. FP mean empathy value was 41.1 points on a scale of 10-50 (CI 95%, 40.1-42.2). The only significant statistical association was related to educational level (p = 0.02). Patients with lower levels of formal education provided lower scores for FP empathy. CONCLUSION: The patients of this PPHCP scored high for empathy. Lower levels of formal education were correlated with lower scores for empathy, an association not found in other studies.