Improving the Quality of Patient Care and Healthcare Staff Well-Being through an Empathy Immersion Educational Programme in New Zealand: Protocol of a Feasibility and Pilot Study

Abstract

Empathy is positively related to healthcare workers and patients’ wellbeing. There is, however, limited research on the effects of empathy education delivered in acute clinical settings and its impact on healthcare consumers. This research tests the feasibility and the potential efficacy outcomes of an immersive education programme developed by the research team in collaboration with clinical partners and a multidisciplinary advisory group. Healthcare worker participants in the intervention ward will receive an 8-week immersive empathy education. The primary outcome (feasibility) will be assessed by evaluating the acceptability of the intervention and the estimated resources. The secondary outcome (efficacy) will be assessed using a quasi-experimental study design. Non-parametric tests will be used to test healthcare worker participants’ empathy, burnout, and organisational satisfaction (within-group and across groups), and healthcare consumer participants’ satisfaction (between-group) over time. Despite growing interest in the importance of empathy in professional relationships, to our knowledge, the present pilot study is the first to explore the feasibility and efficacy of an immersive empathy education in New Zealand. Our findings will provide critical evidence to support the development of a randomised cluster trial and potentially provide preliminary evidence for the effectiveness of this type of empathy education.

I Seminario de Investigación Binacional Oaxaca – San Diego: un espacio intercultural

“…W. Hauze, 2018;Hoyt, 2018). A preliminary search yielded sources across four thematic areas: 1) transdisciplinarity in healthcare research as a methodology to confront the complex nature of the problem (briefly addressed previously); 2) the urgency to embed SDOH, empathy, cultural competence, and other social/emotional skills in nurse training (Hall et al, 2015;AACN, 2021;Thornton & Persaud, 2018); 3) interventions designed to improve quality of care through education focused on empathy, compassion, and emotional skills (Bertrand et al, 2018;Chernikova et al, 2020;Courtney-Pratt et al, 2015;Everson et al, 2015;Hales et al, 2021;Levett-Jones et al, 2017Levett-Jones & Cant, 2020;Saab et al, 2021); and 4) evaluation of interventions that aim to increase empathy in students including nursing student variables, perspectives, and learning considerations related to interventions (Hannans et al, 2021;Hofmann et al, 2021;Kim & Ahn, 2021;Mikkonen et al, 2016;Papadopoulos et al, 2016;Radianti et al, 2020).…”

“…This assumption perpetuates the misconception that so-called immersive learning experiences always entail technology-supported interventions. These limiting assumptions appear across reference studies that use the word "immersive" or the "immersive learning" concept either as part of their abstract, title, body, or keywords (Bertrand et al, 2018;Chernikova et al, 2020;Courtney-Pratt et al, 2015;Everson et al, 2015;Hales et al, 2021;Levett-Jones et al, 2017Levett-Jones & Cant, 2020;Saab et al, 2021). However, these articles lack clear definitions and boundaries of the terms that may differentiate their study's understanding of immersion or immersive learning from others that may or may not involve technology instruments.…”

“…Similar limiting assumptions involve the concept of empathy within immersive simulations. For example, Hales et al (2021) examine empathy immersion interventions that demonstrate positive correlations with the overall well-being of patients and healthcare workers. However, this article is one example of several that discuss the concept of empathy in general terms without a clear distinction between a wide range of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral variables (e.g., empathetic concern, cognitive empathy, valuing the person, perspective taking, etc.)…”

“…The review of immersive learning interventions literature with particular attention to how variables are measured reveals an outcome of disciplinary bias, which limits our understanding because the types of assessments used to gauge outcomes employ only self-report instruments (Bertrand et al, 2018;Chernikova et al, 2020;Courtney-Pratt et al, 2015;Everson et al, 2015;Hales et al, 2021;Levett-Jones & Cant, 2020;Saab et al, 2021) that include limited qualitative data. Namely, the systematic review by Levett-Jones et al ( 2019) regarding the effectiveness of empathy education for undergraduate nursing students identified two critical weaknesses across all reviewed studies: 1) all research designs used subjective measures and offered limited levels of objective evidence, calling studies "self-report surveys which can be influenced by social desirability bias" (p.12); and 2) researchers often overlook how results can be impacted by the various definitions of empathy and ongoing debates about which empathy domains and elements are being measured (as previously discussed), calling out the need for careful consideration of "the purpose, appropriateness, and relevance of specific empathy instruments prior to use, and [that] psychometric testing should be undertaken with sampled populations" (p.11).…”