ArticleJournal of general internal medicine2019
Physician Empathy Is Not Associated with Laboratory Outcomes in Diabetes: a Cross-sectional Study.
Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The Role of Physician and Practice Characteristics in the Quality of Diabetes Management in Primary Care: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Journal of general internal medicine · 2020Pooled it
- Medicine plus mindset: A mixed-methods evaluation of a novel mindset-focused training for primary care teams.Patient education and counseling · 2024Article
- Are clinicians' self-reported empathic concern and perspective-taking traits associated with their response to patient emotions?: Communication Studies.Patient education and counseling · 2020Article
- Physician Empathy and Diabetes Outcomes.Journal of general internal medicine · 2019Article
- Observational
- Encouraging perspective taking: Using narrative writing to induce empathy for others engaging in negative health behaviors.PloS one · 2019Article
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6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundOne widely cited study suggested a link between physician empathy and laboratory outcomes in patients with diabetes, but its findings have not been replicated. While empathy has a positive impact on patient experience, its impact on other outcomes remains unclear.
objectiveTo assess associations between physician empathy and glycosylated hemoglobin (HgbA1c) as well as low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels in patients with diabetes.
designRetrospective cross-sectional study.
participantsPatients with diabetes who received care at a large integrated health system in the USA between January 1, 2011, and May 31, 2014, and their primary care physicians. MAIN MEASURES: The main independent measure was physician empathy, as measured by the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE). The JSE is scored on a scale of 20-140, with higher scores indicating greater empathy. Dependent measures included patient HgbA1c and LDL. Mixed-effects linear regression models adjusting for patient sociodemographic characteristics, comorbidity index, and physician characteristics were used to assess the association between physician JSE scores and their patients' HgbA1c and LDL. KEY
resultsThe sample included 4176 primary care patients who received care with one of 51 primary care physicians. Mean physician JSE score was 118.4 (standard deviation (SD) = 12). Median patient HgbA1c was 6.7% (interquartile range (IQR) = 6.2-7.5) and median LDL concentration was 83 (IQR = 66-104). In adjusted analyses, there was no association between JSE scores and HgbA1c (β = - 0.01, 95%CI = - 0.04, 0.02, p = 0.47) or LDL (β = 0.41, 95%CI = - 0.47, 1.29, p = 0.35).
conclusionPhysician empathy was not associated with HgbA1c or LDL. While interventions to increase physician empathy may result in more patient-centered care, they may not improve clinical outcomes in patients with diabetes.
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