Compassionate care through the eyes of patients and physicians: An interview study

Maarten P M Debets; Iris Jansen; Mariëlle Diepeveen; Rosa Bogerd; Bert A C Molewijk; Guy A M Widdershoven; Kiki M J M H Lombarts

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0305007

Compassionate care through the eyes of patients and physicians: An interview study

PLoS One. 2024 Jul 10;19(7):e0305007. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0305007. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Maarten P M Debets^{1

2}, Iris Jansen^{1

2}, Mariëlle Diepeveen^{2

3}, Rosa Bogerd^{1

2}, Bert A C Molewijk^{2

3}, Guy A M Widdershoven^{2

3}, Kiki M J M H Lombarts^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Medical Psychology, Amsterdam UMC location University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
² Quality of Care, Amsterdam Public Health, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
³ Ethics, Law and Humanities, Amsterdam UMC location Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Abstract

Background: Although compassion is a crucial element of physicians' professional performance and high-quality care, research shows it often remains an unmet need of patients. Understanding patients' and physicians' perspectives on compassionate care may provide insights that can be used to foster physicians' ability to respond to patients' compassion needs. Therefore, this study aims to understand how both patients and physicians experience the concept and practice of compassionate care.

Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews with eight patients and ten resident physicians at a University Medical Center in the Netherlands. Using thematic analysis, we separately coded patient and resident transcripts to identify themes capturing their experiences of compassionate care. This study was part of a larger project to develop an educational intervention to improve compassion in residents.

Results: For both patients and residents, we identified four themes encompassing compassionate care: being there, empathizing, actions to relieve patients' suffering, and connection. For residents, a fifth theme was professional fulfillment (resulting from compassionate care). Although patients and residents both emphasized the importance of compassionate care, patients did not always perceive the physician-patient encounter as compassionate. According to residents, high workloads and time pressures hindered their ability to provide compassionate care.

Discussion and conclusion: Patients and residents have similar and varying understandings of compassionate care at the same time. Understanding these differences can aid compassion in medical practice. Based on the findings, three topics are suggested to improve compassion in residents: (1) train residents how to ask for patients' compassion needs, (2) address residents' limiting beliefs about the concept and practice of compassion, and (3) acknowledge the art and science of medicine cannot be separated.

Copyright: © 2024 Debets et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

MeSH terms

Adult
Attitude of Health Personnel
Empathy*
Female
Humans
Internship and Residency
Interviews as Topic
Male
Middle Aged
Netherlands
Patients / psychology
Physician-Patient Relations*
Physicians* / psychology

Grants and funding

This publication was supported by the Amsterdam Public Health (APH) research institute, specifically the Quality of Care research program. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of APH. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.