AUTHORS
Francesco Bruggi1, Francesco Falaschi2, Antonio Di Sabatino1,3, Paola Stefania Preti4, Carmine Tinelli5, Dominica Dell’Aera2, Alessandra Martignoni2, Stefano Perlini1,6
TITLE
Correlation between attending physicians’ empathy and readmission rate in Internal Medicine.
RUNNING TITLE
Phisicians’ empathy and readmission rate
AFFILIATIONS
1Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Italia
2Medicina Generale 2, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italia
3Medicina Generale 1, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italia
4Dipartimento di Medicina Interna e Terapia Medica, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Italia
5Servizio di Epidemiologia Clinica e Biometria, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italia
6Pronto Soccorso Accettazione, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo, Pavia, Italia
ADDRESS FOR ALL AUTHORS
Segreteria Medicina Generale 2, Viale Camillo Golgi 19, 27100 Pavia, Italia
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Francesco Bruggi, f.bruggi@gmail.com; (+39) 333 103 7126
KEYWORDS
Empathy, readmission, heart failure, Internal Medicine.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OF FUNDING OR OTHER SUPPORT
No fundings or other special grants were used to collect the data and to write the article .We wish to thank the Jefferson University (Philadelphia) in the person of Professor Vittorio Maio for kind concession of free use of Jefferson Scale of Empathy anf Funda Muge Topuz (Direzione Scientifica, Fondazione IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo) for the revision of the manuscript
DISCLOSURES
None for all authors
ABSTRACT
Introduction
Physician empathy has been correlated with several outcomes in outpatient settings, demonstrating better prognosis in patients followed by highly empathetic doctors.
Aim
To correlate empathy of Internal Medicine ward physicians with readmission rates of patients they took care of.
Methods
We extracted readmission data of all patients discharged from Internal Medicine wards at our hospital between January 1st, 2011 and May 31st, 2017. Patients discharged to other institutions (nursing homes, rehabilitation units, other hospitals) were excluded. The 30-day readmission rate was recorded for each doctor.
We measured the empathy of physicians who discharged more than 100 patients during that period, using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) and the Empathy Components Questionnaire (ECQ).
Correlation between empathy scores and readmission rate was weighted for the number of patients followed by each physician and adjusted for sex, age and relative cost weight of patients, as well as the doctor’s age. The same correlation was calculated in the subgroup of index patients discharged with Diagnosis Related Group 127 (DRG 127, Heart Failure and Shock).
Results
A total of 4280 index discharge events were identified, 383 of which (8.9%) were readmitted within 30 days. JSE scores were found out to be inversely correlated with readmission rates (coefficient -0.027, R2 0.181, p<0.001) whereas ECQ correlation was not significant after adjustment. A significant inverse correlation was also observed considering only the DRG 127 patients, with both Empathy scales (JSE and ECQ, coefficient -0.032 and -0.098, R2 0.303 and 0.326, p=0.050 and p<0.001, respectively).
Conclusion
Empathy of Internal Medicine physicians correlates with readmission rates of the patients they cared for, especially heart failure patients for whom this is a relevant outcome.