Tools for improving clinical communication: empathy map and empathy scale
Abstract
The role of empathy in patient-centered care is paramount. However, the level of empathy among healthcare professionals and medical students is currently sub-optimal. The course ‘Empathic and Assertive Communication in Clinical Practice’ aims to develop empathic communication to optimise the level of empathy among medical students. The empathy map is a tool to help understand another person’s perspective. The participants of the study were third, fourth and fifth-year medical students. In the course ‘Empathic and Assertive Communication in Clinical Practice’, the medical students were given simulated medical cases in which the simulated patient was resistant and tried to reach a shared decision with the patient using empathic communication in the process of persuasion. As part of the medical students’ communication skills training, we assessed the applicability and usefulness of the empathy map. A key element of evaluating doctor-patient situations was obtaining feedback from the patient, for which the online empathy scale (PPIQ) questionnaire was used. The empathy map helped medical students to understand the patient during the dialogue better. In the patient questionnaire, the highest scoring aspects in the physician’s assessment were calmness, giving understandable information, respect, listening attentively, encouragement, and making shared decisions. The empathy map helps students focus on the patient, but further research is needed to determine how much their empathic skills are enhanced.
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