64. Practitioner Empathy and Musculoskeletal Patient Outcomes in Primary Care

Abstract

Background: Empathy is considered an essential prerequisite to successful professional-patient relationships. The Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) instrument is a validated measure of patient perceived practitioner empathy in primary care. Whilst practitioner empathy is known to lead to greater patient satisfaction, associations with other patient outcomes remain less clear. This study therefore sought to explore the associations between perceived practitioner empathy among musculoskeletal physiotherapy attenders and other patient reported outcomes. Methods: Patients with musculoskeletal conditions were recruited from five community physiotherapy services. Consenting patients completed a questionnaire on their first visit, each subsequent visit and received a 3-month follow-up postal questionnaire containing the CARE measure. Other patient outcomes included the change in EQ- 5D-5L index, global health, the musculoskeletal patient reported outcome measure (MSK-PROM), and satisfaction. The CARE measure was examined for reliability in terms of item to total correlation and Cronbach's alpha. Associations between participant characteristics and total CARE score were examined. The relationship between total CARE score and the other patient outcomes of interest was examined using logistic regression (for global health and satisfaction) and linear regression (for EQ-5D-5L and MSK-PROM). Results: Four hundred and 25 patients participated in the study, of which 225 (53%) completed the three-month follow-up questionnaire. The mean total CARE score was 43.1 (S.D. 7.8, range 19-50), and 87 (38.7%) respondents scored 50/50 on the measure suggesting a significant ceiling effect. The 10 CARE items had a Cronbach's alpha of 0.977 suggesting some items may be redundant. All CARE items were highly correlated with the total CARE score (P<0.001). CARE item 9 helping you to take control was most correlated with total CARE score (r=0 .905, P