Introduction:

The relationship between self-assessed empathetic capacity and the physicians’ empathetic behaviors correlates poorly or not at all with patients’ perspectives on the aspect of doctor-patient interactions. Thus, any assessment of doctor’s empathy must consider the patients’ perspectives. This allows a more concrete understanding of the doctor-patient interaction.

Objective:

To develop an instrument based on the Health Empathy Map (HEM) to evaluate the empathetic care of medical students from the patient’s perspective.

Method:

This is a study with a qualitative and descriptive approach aimed to construct an instrument capable of evaluating the clinical empathy of medical students, from the patient’s perspective. The Study consisted of three phases: 1. Preparation of the Health Empathy Map according to the patient’s perception (HEM-PP): adaptation of the Health Empathy Map (HEM); 2. Adequacy of the instrument content: using the expert panel technique; 3. Assessment of the degree of clarity and feasibility of the instrument in the target population in the learning scenario: distribution to patients in the outpatient setting.

Results:

The adequacy of the instrument to be used by patients, in health teaching scenarios, took into consideration the conceptual pillars of empathy - perspective taking, emotional sharing and empathetic concern - as well as the experts’ suggestions and the pre-tests carried out with patients. All suggestions were debated by the researchers and accepted, after a consensus that they indicated advances and improvements to the instrument, allowing its use by patients in health learning scenarios. The final version of the HEM-PP has 4 quadrants containing closed questions/emojis addressing the patient’s feelings and needs regarding the clinical picture, as well as the health professional’s perception and conduct in relation to the biomedical, affective and social aspects.

Conclusion:

The final version of the Health Empathy Map from the Patient’s Perception (HEM-PP) proved to be easy to understand and apply in the context of care teaching and was considered by the participants in the different phases of the study to be an educational tool with great instructional potential regarding the development of empathy, in the clinical learning scenario.

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