Abstract
BackgroundGood physician-patient communication can favor the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits, which is essential in high blood pressure (BP) management. More empathic physicians tend to have lower burnout and better communication skills. We analyzed the association between burnout and empathy among primary care physicians and nurses and investigated the influence on BP control performance.MethodsDescriptive study conducted in 2014 investigating burnout and empathy levels in 267 primary care physicians and nurses and BP control data for 301,657 patients under their care. We administered the Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy and defined good BP control as a systolic BP <130 mmHg.ResultsLow burnout and high empathy were observed in 58.8% and 33.7% of practitioners, respectively. Burnout and empathy were significantly negatively associated (p < 0.009). Practitioners with high empathy and low burnout had significantly better BP control and performance than those with low empathy and high burnout (p < 0.05).ConclusionsLow burnout and high empathy were significantly associated with improved BP control and performance, possibly in relation to better physician/nurse-patient communication.
Highlights
Good physician-patient communication can favor the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits, which is essential in high blood pressure (BP) management
Prompted by the work of Hojat et al and our recent observation of an association between empathy and burnout among family physicians, we investigated whether these factors might influence blood pressure (BP) control performance in primary care
In total, 267 primary care physicians and nurses (58 men and 209 women) completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE), and BP data were collected for 301,657 patients under their care
Summary
Good physician-patient communication can favor the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits, which is essential in high blood pressure (BP) management. More empathic physicians tend to have lower burnout and better communication skills. We analyzed the association between burnout and empathy among primary care physicians and nurses and investigated the influence on BP control performance. One strategy for reducing the effects of burnout is to promote understanding and empathy among care providers, [8, 9] and this would have an obvious knock-on effect in terms of improved clinician-patient communication. A recent study by our group found a significant association between empathy and burnout among family doctors in our health district, we found no evidence that either of these factors had an impact on sick leave prescribing habits [11]
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