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  • Cross-sectional study of the association between healthcare professionals’ empathy and burnout and the number of annual primary care visits per patient under their care in Spain

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Patient-centred medicine
Research
Cross-sectional study of the association between healthcare professionals’ empathy and burnout and the number of annual primary care visits per patient under their care in Spain
  1. Oriol Yuguero1,2,
  2. Edward R Melnick3,
  3. Josep R. Marsal4,5,
  4. Montserrat Esquerda1,6,
  5. Jorge Soler-Gonzalez1,2
  1. 1 Faculty of Medicine, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain
  2. 2 Biomedical Research Institute of Lleida, IRBLLEIDA, Lleida, Spain
  3. 3 Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
  4. 4 Research Support Unit, Primary Care Research Institute (IDIAP), Barcelona, Spain
  5. 5 Epidemiology Unit, Cardiovascular Department, Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain
  6. 6 Direction, Borja Bioethics Institute, Barcelona, Spain
  1. Correspondence to Dr Oriol Yuguero; Oriol.yuguero{at}gmail.com

Abstract

Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between physician and nurse self-reported empathy and burnout and the number of annual primary care visits per patient under their care.

Methods Design: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted from January 2013 to July 2014. Site: The 22 primary care centres of the Lleida Health Region in Spain. Main outcome measures: The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy and the Maslach Burnout Inventory were used to measure empathy and burnout, respectively. The number of visits and the number of diagnoses coded per visit were obtained through the Region’s electronic health record.

Results Two hundred and sixty-seven healthcare professionals (physicians and nurses, 52.6% participation of the total in the region) with 301 657 patients under their care. Healthcare professionals’ degree of burnout and empathy was associated with the number of annual visits per patient under their care. Burned out nurses and physicians received fewer visits (4.5vs3.7 in nurses and 18.1vs18.9 in physicians), whereas more empathic physicians received more visits per patient (19.4vs17.2, p<0.05) and documented more diagnoses per visit (10.2vs9.7, p=0.001). Less burned out and less empathic nurses documented more diagnoses per visit (10.2vs10.0 and 8.2vs9.9, p<0.05).

Conclusions The number of annual primary care visits per patient that healthcare professionals receive is closely associated with healthcare professionals’ empathy and burnout. These results should serve to promote empathic skills and establish organisational changes that promote efficiency in the practice and, in turn, reduce the degree of burnout of healthcare professionals.

  • empathy
  • burnout
  • primary care
  • quality In health care

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-020949

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors OY designed the study and wrote the main part of the paper. ERM collaborated in the design of the paper and in its revision. JRM performed the statistical analysis. ME collaborated in the collection of data and in the introductory research. JS-G reviewed the manuscript and collaborated in the revision of the entire process.

    • Funding This study was funded by Universitat de Lleida (translation of the paper).

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent Not required.

    • Ethics approval Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Jordi Gol Institute for Primary Care Research (IDIAP).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement All the data are included in the article.