Relationship between the Empathy of Emergency Personnel and Their Approach to Acute Stroke Patients

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the empathy level of emergency department physicians and nurses and the referral of patients for intravenous thrombolytic and/or endovascular thrombectomy treatment. Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out with the emergency department physicians and nurses of hospitals that did not have a stroke clinic in Bursa in July 2019, and included 198 emergency personnel. Participants’ sociodemographic characteristics, professional working conditions, and stroke history in their immediate environment (friends and family) were recorded and empathy level was measured. The health professions version of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy was used in the assessment of empathy status among emergency physicians and nurses. Results: The mean empathy score of the study group, by the Jefferson scale of empathy, was found 98.63±14.83 points. In this study, no significant relationship was found between the empathy score and the number of referrals (p=0.962). The total empathy score did not differ by the role of the participants in the hospital (p=0.161) or observation of stroke cases in their family or their friends (p=0.694). Healthcare professionals who had received emergency education (p<0.001), were older (p<0.001), spent more time in their profession (p=0.005), and had observed stroke cases in their family or friends (p=0.005) transferred more stroke cases. Conclusion: This study suggests that interventions for increasing the empathy levels of emergency medicine specialists and nurses will not have a general effect on the referral of acute stroke cases for intravenous thrombolytic and endovascular thrombectomy treatment.