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Oncology patients' responses to an open-ended question about empathic clinician behavior have revealed insights into a variety of behaviors that are perceived as demonstrative of empathy. These include behaviors that imply sensitivity to the clinician-patient relationship, such as listening and understanding and attention to the whole person. Participants valued caring communication and demeanor and clinician accessibility. Perspective taking was not common among answers. Many existing measures of clinical care quality do not include the behaviors cited by patients as empathic. These results can inform efforts to refine quality measures of empathy-associated behaviors in clinical practice. Cancer centers can use skills training to improve elements of communication.
Sanders et al. (Thu,) studied this question.