Quantitative measurement of empathy and analysis of its correlation to clinical factors in korean patients with chronic diseases

Clinical Hypertension

Research

Stewart W. Mercer¹  Hoon-Ki Park²  Kye-Yeung Park²  Yu Mi Kim³  Ran Heo⁴  Jinho Shin⁴  Hyun-Jin Kim⁵  Byung Sik Kim⁵  Seon Young Hwang⁶ 

[1]Centre for Population Health Sciences, Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, Edinburgh, Scotland

[2]Department of Family Medicine, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea

[3]Department of Preventive Medicine, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea

[4]Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea

[5]Division of Cardiology, Department of Internal Medicine, Hanyang University Guri Hospital, Hanyang University College of Medicine, Guri, Republic of Korea

[6]School of Nursing, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

关键词: Empathy;    Chronic disease;    Patient-centered care;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s40885-023-00246-5

 received in 2022-12-31, accepted in 2023-05-25,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundEmpathy is the core of the physician-patient relationship. The Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure is a useful tool for assessing patient-rated empathy. There have been scarce data on empathy in chronic disease patients in Korea. We aim to evaluate empathy using the Korean CARE measure in patients from various clinical environments and the factors influencing the degree of empathy in patients with chronic disease.MethodsData were collected from patients with chronic diseases. Patients were from primary, secondary, and tertiary clinics. Characteristics of the patients, physicians, and disease status were collected. The difference in CARE score was studied according to the clinical factors.ResultsA total of 162 patients with chronic diseases were included. About 60% of patients were male. The mean age was 62 years. They had an average number of 2.6 diseases. More than half of patients experienced overt cardiovascular disease. About half of them had a history of hospitalization due to cardiovascular disease. The overall average CARE score was 45.6 ± 7.0. The CARE score was not significantly different according to the characteristics of the patient, physician, or disease status. Regarding marital status, the CARE score was significantly lower for the small number of patients (n = 4, 2.5%) who refused to provide their marital status than for other groups. Except for four patients, there was no significant difference in the CARE score among married, unmarried, or divorced groups. This trend was maintained in hypertensive patients.ConclusionsThe Korean CARE measure could assess patient-rated empathy in various clinical practices. The empathy of patients was high regardless of multiple factors.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

【 图 表 】

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