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How empathic is your healthcare practitioner? A systematic review and meta-analysis of patient surveys

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medical Education, August 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • One of the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#6 of 3,970)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (99th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
25 news outlets
blogs
7 blogs
twitter
72 X users
facebook
1 Facebook page
wikipedia
1 Wikipedia page

Citations

dimensions_citation
97 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
223 Mendeley
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Title
How empathic is your healthcare practitioner? A systematic review and meta-analysis of patient surveys
Published in
BMC Medical Education, August 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12909-017-0967-3
Pubmed ID
Authors

J. Howick, L. Steinkopf, A. Ulyte, N. Roberts, K. Meissner

Abstract

A growing body of evidence suggests that healthcare practitioners who enhance how they express empathy can improve patient health, and reduce medico-legal risk. However we do not know how consistently healthcare practitioners express adequate empathy. In this study, we addressed this gap by investigating patient rankings of practitioner empathy. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies that asked patients to rate their practitioners' empathy using the Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure. CARE is emerging as the most common and best-validated patient rating of practitioner empathy. We searched: MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Cinahl, Science & Social Science Citation Indexes, the Cochrane Library and PubMed from database inception to March 2016. We excluded studies that did not use the CARE measure. Two reviewers independently screened titles and extracted data on average CARE scores, demographic data for patients and practitioners, and type of healthcare practitioners. Sixty-four independent studies within 51 publications had sufficient data to pool. The average CARE score was 40.48 (95% CI, 39.24 to 41.72). This rank s in the bottom 5th percentile in comparison with scores collected by CARE developers. Longer consultations (n = 13) scored 15% higher (42.60, 95% CI 40.66 to 44.54) than shorter (n = 9) consultations (34.93, 95% CI 32.63 to 37.24). Studies with mostly (>50%) female practitioners (n = 6) showed 16% higher empathy scores (42.77, 95% CI 38.98 to 46.56) than those with mostly (>50%) male (n = 6) practitioners (34.84, 95% CI 30.98 to 38.71). There were statistically significant (P = 0.032) differences between types of providers (allied health professionals, medical students, physicians, and traditional Chinese doctors). Allied Health Professionals (n = 6) scored the highest (45.29, 95% CI 41.38 to 49.20), and physicians (n = 39) scored the lowest (39.68, 95% CI 38.29 to 41.08). Patients in Australia, the USA, and the UK reported highest empathy ratings (>43 average CARE), with lowest scores (<35 average CARE scores) in Hong Kong. Patient rankings of practitioner empathy are highly variable, with female practitioners expressing empathy to patients more effectively than male practitioners. The high variability of patient rating of practitioner empathy is likely to be associated with variable patient health outcomes. Limitations included frequent failure to report response rates introducing a risk of response bias. Future work is warranted to investigate ways to reduce the variability in practitioner empathy.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 72 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 223 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 223 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 27 12%
Researcher 23 10%
Student > Bachelor 21 9%
Student > Ph. D. Student 18 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 18 8%
Other 55 25%
Unknown 61 27%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 63 28%
Psychology 26 12%
Nursing and Health Professions 20 9%
Unspecified 6 3%
Engineering 5 2%
Other 32 14%
Unknown 71 32%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 280. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 25 February 2024.
All research outputs
#126,851
of 25,363,685 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medical Education
#6
of 3,970 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#2,794
of 325,396 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medical Education
#1
of 69 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,363,685 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,970 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 325,396 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 69 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.