Patients cared for by physicians with high empathy scores reported lower pain intensity and less disability.

Physician empathy is a core aspect of professionalism and might be particularly important when caring for patients with chronic pain. In this study, researchers explored the importance of empathy in 1470 adults (mean age, 53 years) with chronic low back pain who were participants in a larger US study of patients with back pain; participants were asked to rate the empathy of their treating physicians on a validated 10-item scale (maximum score, 50). Physicians were categorised as having high or low empathy using a cut-off score of 30. Patients completed quarterly pain, function and quality-of-life scales for one year.

In adjusted analyses, patients whose physicians were rated as having high empathy had more favourable scores on all scales than did patients treated by low-empathy physicians. All differences were considered to be clinically relevant. The high-empathy group’s mean scores were 0.5 points better on a 10-point pain scale, 2 points better on a 24-point function scale, and 2 to 3 points better on several 70-point health-related quality-of-life scales. 

Comment: These results support the idea that physician empathy might confer therapeutic benefit to patients with chronic low back pain. But it is also possible that patients who rated their physicians more highly for empathy were those whose pain was improving for other reasons. Moreover, whether the small average differences reported truly are clinically important could be debated. Questions that would be worth exploring are whether low-empathy physicians can improve through educational interventions and whether improvements in empathy lead to positive changes in patient outcomes.

Thomas L. Schwenk, MD, Professor Emeritus, Family and Community Medicine, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, USA.

Licciardone JC, et al. Physician empathy and chronic pain outcomes. JAMA Netw Open 2024; 7: e246026.

This summary is taken from the following Journal Watch titles: General Medicine, Ambulatory Medicine, Neurology.