Self-care and emotional engagement in therapeutic contexts: a predictive study of healthcare practitioners

Abstract

Background: Clinical empathy is essential to therapy quality, patient satisfaction, and practitioner well-being. Mindful self-care has been shown to prevent burnout, but less is known about its association with adaptive professional abilities such as clinical empathy. This research examined whether multidimensional mindful self-care predicts healthcare practitioner clinical empathy. Methods: A cross-sectional predictive design was employed with a sample of 153 healthcare practitioners in Saudi Arabia. Participants filled out the Arabic versions of the Multidimensional Clinical Empathy Scale (M-CES) and the Mindful Self-Care Scale–Brief (MSCS-Brief). We used Pearson correlations, multiple regression, and structural equation modelling (SEM) to look at the data. To ensure model parsimony, professional experience was retained as the sole control variable in the structural model. Results: The relational and structural self-care dimensions had the most robust positive correlations with total clinical empathy. Multiple regression analysis revealed that self-care dimensions collectively accounted for 28.5% of the variance in empathy (R² = 0.285, p