Greater professional empathy leads to higher agreement about decisions made in the consultation

Objective: To examine the relationship between professional expression of empathy and agreement about decisions made in the consultation. Methods: Consultations between 86 individuals with diabetes and four dieticians were audio-recorded. Immediately following consultations patients and dieticians independently reported decisions made in a booklet. Audio-recordings were coded directly for empathy using an amended version of the empathic communication coding system (ECCS). Results: Empathy correlated significantly with patient and professional agreement about decisions made in the consultation (tau = .283, p = .0005). Multiple regression analysis indicates that for each dietician the greater the empathy the higher the level of agreement about decisions (p < .0005). Professional empathic response to patients statements of challenge was a significant factor in increasing agreement about decisions (p = .008). Conclusion: Results support the hypothesis that greater professional empathy will result in greater agreement about decisions made in consultations. Practice implications: Findings have implications for empathy training and provide guidance on the communication skills needed to support expression of empathy. Patient and professional agreement about decisions made provides a simple marker of effectiveness and highlights the importance of empathy as a seminal component of professional communication skills during a patient consultation. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.