Rapid Scoping Review: Empathy in Health Sciences Curriculum.
Renee F RobinsonKelleen MeluskiTracy HellemTravis HedwigNatalie HansenJennifer AdamsMary NiesKrista SalazarPublished in: Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) (2023)
Empathy, the process of coming to know, understand, and care for another person, is a skill that can be learned; however, there is not a shared definition of empathy or understanding of how to operationalize empathy into practice. Healthcare worker empathy has been shown to have a beneficial effect on both patient health outcomes and the emotional wellness of healthcare workers. Empathic care is associated with more efficient, cost-effective, improved healthcare, and increased provider trust. The purpose of this rapid scoping review is to identify, compare, and contrast empathy training offered to select healthcare professional students (e.g., nurses, nurse practitioners, and pharmacists) as part of the general curriculum or as an elective. We utilized a rapid scoping review approach to identify potentially relevant peer-reviewed articles and studies for inclusion. Six electronic databases were searched, including: MEDLINE; EMBASE; PUBMed; CINAHL; EBSCOHOST; and ERIC, covering the past 10 years. A total of 4977 citations, 3480 abstracts, and 428 papers were screened. Fifty studies fulfilled the eligibility criteria. Of those, 21 primarily non-randomized experimental studies published between 2012 and 2021 were included in the final review. Over 80 percent of the training took place in the classroom setting and utilized active learning strategies. There is little consensus on how to best train future healthcare providers to provide empathic care to patients.
Keyphrases
- healthcare
- primary care
- quality improvement
- health information
- end stage renal disease
- ejection fraction
- newly diagnosed
- chronic kidney disease
- case control
- medical students
- magnetic resonance
- affordable care act
- public health
- systematic review
- patients undergoing
- prognostic factors
- randomized controlled trial
- mental health
- case report
- climate change
- current status
- clinical trial
- risk assessment