Empathy and the development of affective skills

Abstract

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.