Wegmans School of Pharmacy, St. John Fisher College, Rochester, New York.
Editorial Board Member, American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, Arlington, Virginia.
Am J Pharm Educ. 2018 Dec;82(10):7192. doi: 10.5688/ajpe7192.
Empathy, the most important human attribute that matters in every aspect of life, is essential in health care. Provision of patient-centered care requires empathic health care practitioners. The correlation between empathy of health care providers and improved patient adherence, satisfaction, and treatment outcomes is well-established. Scholarly evidence shows positive correlations between empathy and affective domains and confirms that soft skills are grounded in empathy. Empathic students have stronger affective skills and are capable to acquire, develop, reinforce, and display strong affective behaviors, abilities, and attitudes. As an innate quality, empathy is malleable. The level of empathy can be influenced by educational interventions inculcated into students during the entire curriculum, including both didactic and experiential training. The effectiveness of educational methods may be strengthened by activities that help students enhance empathy and achieve required affective skills. Empathy and the empathy-based affective skills essential in patient-centered care should be routinely and deliberately taught, modelled, and assessed across the continuum of health care curricula.
同理心是生活各个方面最重要的人类特质，在医疗保健中至关重要。提供以患者为中心的护理需要有同理心的医疗保健从业者。医疗保健提供者同理心与提高患者依从性、满意度和治疗效果之间的相关性已得到充分证实。学术证据表明同理心与情感领域之间存在正相关关系，并证实软技能源于同理心。有同理心的学生具有更强的情感技能，能够获得、发展、加强和展示强大的情感行为、能力和态度。作为一种先天素质，同理心是可塑的。同理心的水平可以通过在整个课程中向学生灌输的教育干预措施来影响，包括理论和实践培训。通过帮助学生增强同理心并达到所需的情感技能的活动，可以增强教育方法的有效性。同理心以及以患者为中心的护理中必不可少的基于同理心的情感技能应在医疗保健课程的整个连续体中进行常规、有针对性地教授、示范和评估。
