Medical professionals are continuously exposed to the suffering and distress of patients. The way physicians perceive their patients' pain is related to their empathetic disposition and professional quality of life, and can also contribute to the development of strategies to prevent physicians from burnout and compassion fatigue, according to a recent study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
The study was conducted through a web-based series of self-reported measures and behavioral tasks administered to 1,199 board-certified physicians. Researchers measured participating physicians' levels of empathy from the online reports after the participants viewed 12 video clips showing male and female patients expressing physical pain.
The following demographic traits influence physicians' levels of empathy, according to the study's findings.
- Perceived pain intensity was significantly lower among more experienced physicians but similar across specialty fields with varying demands of emotional stress.
- Perceived pain intensity was positively and strongly correlated with induced personal distress from viewing videos of patients in pain.
- While less experienced physicians perceived patients' pain more intensely than more experienced physicians, pain-induced emotional distress was similar irrespective of professional experience.
- The videos elicited more personal distress among physicians in highly demanding medical fields, despite comparable empathy dispositions with physicians in other fields.
- The pain of male patients was perceived as less intense than the pain of female patients, and this effect was more significant for female physicians.
- Physicians who experience both compassion satisfaction and fatigue perceive more pain and suffer more personal distress from it than those who only suffer the negative aspects of professional quality of life.