ArticleFrontiers in psychology2019
Caring for Critically Ill Patients: Clinicians' Empathy Promotes Job Satisfaction and Does Not Predict Moral Distress.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- The risk of empty empathy talk and challenges of automated empathy in healthcare communication.NPJ digital medicine · 2026Review
- Article
- Fostering empathy in healthcare: impact of a simulation-based educational program on professionals' relational skills.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Moral distress, moral residue, and associations with psychological distress: a cross-sectional study.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Article
- Empathy, Burnout, and Perceived Stress Among Postgraduate Medical Trainees in India: A Cross-Sectional Study.Indian journal of orthopaedics · 2025Article
- Patient and Practitioner Perspectives on the Definition and Measurement of Therapeutic Empathy: Qualitative Study.Journal of participatory medicine · 2025Article
- Ethics and moral empathy in end-of-life palliative care.Palliative & supportive care · 2025Article
- Article
- Empathy Among Physicians and Nurses in Japan: A Nationwide Cross-sectional Study.Journal of general internal medicine · 2024Article
- Beyond the NURSE Acronym: The Functions of Empathy in Serious Illness Conversations.Journal of pain and symptom management · 2023Article
- Physicians' Distress Related to Moral Issues and Mental Health In-Between Two Late Waves of COVID-19 Contagions.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Article
- Virtual reality-based training for mental health staff: a novel approach to increase empathy, compassion, and subjective understanding of service user experience.Advances in simulation (London, England) · 2022Article
- A systematic scoping review moral distress amongst medical students.BMC medical education · 2022Article
- The Diabetes Simulation Challenge: Enhancing Patient Perspective-Taking for Medical Students.Diabetes spectrum : a publication of the American Diabetes Association · 2022Article
- Cultivating Empathy and Soft Skills Among Intensive Care Residents: Effects of a Mandatory, Simulation-Based, Experiential Training.Annals of transplantation · 2021Observational
- Effect of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Levels of Empathy among Undergraduate Dental Students in Pakistan.European journal of dentistry · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSeveral studies have highlighted the benefits of empathy in healthcare settings. A correlation between clinicians' empathy and patients' adherence and satisfaction, as well as the ability for the clinician to accurately assess family members' needs, has been found. However, empathy is often seen by clinicians as a risk factor for their wellbeing. This study aims to assess whether the level of empathy of clinicians working in critical care settings may expose them to moral distress, poor job satisfaction, and intention to quit their job.
methodsItalian clinicians who attended the 2016 "Smart Meeting Anesthesia Resuscitation in Intensive Care" completed the Empathy Quotient questionnaire, the Moral Distress Scale-Revised, and two questions assessing job satisfaction and intention to quit the job. Multiple linear and logistic regressions were performed to determine if clinicians' empathy influences moral distress, job satisfaction, and intention to quit. Age, gender, and profession were used as control variables.
resultsOut of 927 questionnaires distributed, 216 were returned (23% response rate) and 210 were used in the analyses. Respondents were 56% physicians, 24% nurses, and 20% residents. Over half of the clinicians (58%) were female. Empathy resulted the only significant predictor of job satisfaction (β = 0.193;
conclusionEmpathy determined neither moral distress nor intention to quit. Findings suggest that empathy is not a risk factor for critical care clinicians in developing moral distress and the intention to quit their job. On the contrary, empathy was found to enhance clinicians' job satisfaction.
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