Clinical empathy in a medium and high-risk Brazilian unit

Abstract

Background: Clinical empathy is an essential part of healthcare, and patient-centered care models require clinical empathy to be established. Despite this, little is known about its measurement in the neonatal scenario.

Research aim: To measure clinical empathy in health professionals who work with medium and high-risk neonates and build a construct of this empathy.

Research design: Single-center survey study.

Participants and research context: The Jefferson Scale of Empathy for Health Professionals questionnaire was applied to health professionals who work in an intensive care unit and a medium-risk unit, in Brazil. Analysis was done using descriptive statistics and a factor analysis model, to build the construct of empathy. Overall empathy was calculated, and the domains' punctuations were analyzed and compared to the maximum punctuation possible. The study followed the STROBE checklist.

Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution. All participants signed the informed consent form. Participants' confidentiality and anonymity were protected.

Findings: Median empathy was 117 (IQR 113-124). The domain of Walking in the Patient's Shoes had lower scores and represented 77.6% of the maximum punctuation possible. The factor analysis included three factors named Understanding, Experiences, and Treatment, and Emotional Relationships, explaining 64.3% of the overall variance. The domain Walking in the Patient's Shoes was not included in the model.

Conclusions: In this scenario, clinical empathy should improve. There is a need to improve the domain of Walking in the Patient's Shoes, in this case, the neonate, and provide more empathic care to them.

Keywords: Empathy; factor analysis; health personnel; intensive care; neonatal; newborn.