Enhancing Empathy in Medical Communication Through Perspective-Taking

NCT00861991 | Completed DMC

• 1 other identifier: PT2009
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 608
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Background: Empathy is critical to clinician-patient communication and patient outcomes. Perspective-taking, an intervention demonstrated in other contexts to induce empathy, has never been studied in a medical context. As a first step in evaluating its potential clinical value, the studies described below assess perspective taking in a series of clinical skills examinations. These examinations are simulated clinical encounters: students encounter and are evaluated by standardized patients (SPs)--actors trained to take on patient roles. Though not real clinical encounters, clinical skills examinations have been demonstrated to test clinical competency well enough to be incorporated into the licensure examination of the National Board of Medical Examiners. Objective: To assess if perspective-taking improves the satisfaction of standardized patients in three clinical skills examinations. Hypothesis: Students receiving a perspective taking intervention will receive better standardized patient satisfaction scores than control students. Design and Setting: Three randomized, controlled studies. Studies 1 and 3: Junior medical students(N = 503), 6-station clinical skills examination. Study 2: physician assistant students (N = 105), 3-station clinical skills examination. Intervention: The intervention students received a perspective-taking instruction prior to their examination asking them to put themselves in their "patients" shoes and to imagine what they were thinking and feeling. The control students received standard pre-examination instructions. Simulated patients were blind to study condition. Main Outcome Measure: Simulated patient satisfaction scores.

Conditions

Patient Satisfaction

Keywords

medical communication; empathy; medical education; standardized patients; enhancing "patient" satisfaction

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• standardized patient satisfaction

Study Arms (2)

Perspective taking intervention

EXPERIMENTAL

Students were given an instruction to take the perspectives of their standardized patients

Behavioral: Perspective taking instruction

Control

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

Students given standard instructions

Behavioral: Perspective taking instruction

Interventions

Perspective taking instruction BEHAVIORAL

Students were asked to take the perspective of their standardized patients during clinical skills examinations

Control; Perspective taking intervention

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 20 Years - 45 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• All third year medical and first and second year physician assistant students, George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences

You may not qualify if:

• None

Sponsors & Collaborators

• George Washington University: lead

Study Sites (1)

George Washington University School of Medicine

Washington D.C., District of Columbia, 20037, United States

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Patient Satisfaction

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Treatment Adherence and Compliance; Health Behavior; Behavior

Study Officials

• Benjamin C Blatt, MD

  George Washington University

  STUDY DIRECTOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: February 27, 2009
• First Posted: March 16, 2009
• Study Start: June 1, 2006
• Primary Completion: August 1, 2007
• Study Completion: August 1, 2007
• Last Updated: March 16, 2009

Record last verified: 2009-03

Locations

US (1)