The Search Process And Study Selection

Hannah, B.B. & Virginia, T. (2012). The use of empathy in human services: Strategies for diverse professional roles. Journal of Human Services, 32 (1): 72-84

2. What data and method does the author use to evaluate this intervention? Why was that data and method used?

1. Participants must meet DSM-5 criteria for current PTSD (within the past 6 months. Subjects are allowed to have multiple traumatic events. They must have a CAPS score of 50 or higher, which qualifies them for moderate to severe PTSD symptoms.

Bohart, A. C., Greenberg, L. S., Elliot, R., & Watson, J. C. (2011). Empathy. Psychotherapy , 48 (1), 43-49.

The HBM has four major constructs: Perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefit, and perceived barriers. The model has been expanded to include cues to action and self efficacy (Champion, Stretcher, & Janz, 2002).

Of these 228 participants, 111 participants were in the immediate intervention group and 117 participants were in the delayed intervention group. The delayed intervention group received the intervention 3 months after the immediate intervention group.

The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison left me with many emotions, especially of uncertainty. After reading the collective of essays, I felt as if I needed to revaluate my life. My perspective of empathy has always been to sympathize with the other individual. I always tried to put myself in that person’s “shoes”. Leslie Jamison opened up a whole new world.

The four accepted articles were analyzed and summarized. Article validity, reliability, and bias are included in the discussion. An overview of the articles are included in Table 2, indicating evidence level, design, population characteristics, intervention specifics, outcome measures, and PICO question relevance.

However, both studies only use Randomized Controlled Trial study, Clinically Controlled Trial and Trial Study were selected. According to Abalos E, Carroli G, Mackey ME, Bergel E (2001), Randomized controlled trials provide the most reliable results with regard to the effectiveness of interventions. This review is clearly defined about the sample condition, the intervention, a comparison and control, and the outcome measure that is to be used to determine the effectiveness. It is important as the effects of the intervention may be different in different groups.

Medical schools are putting a large amount of significance in teaching and measuring empathy. Empathy is defined in The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy as, “the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another” (2017). For many years it was thought healthcare providers can be sympathetic, but not have any empathy due to the fear that “getting too close” to their patients can cloud their judgements. It is recognized as a truth that providers are unable to fully experience all the suffering their patients endure and must have some form of detachment, so today’s providers are learning to provide what is known as clinical empathy. The main difference between general empathy in modern society and clinical empathy is general empathy is based in emotion while clinical empathy has a cognitive basis (Markakis K., 1999). This importance of clinical empathy in today’s health care providers has been passed down to medical schools. The Association of American Medical Colleges stated that medical schools need to help create physicians who, “must be compassionate and empathetic in caring for patients” (AAMC 1998). In 2002, Thomas Jefferson University’s Sidney Kimmel Medical College created the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy

The purpose of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is to learn, explore, experience, and practice mindfulness practices in a group setting and at home. These practices are designed to increase our present moment awareness and use this new kind of awareness to approach the stress in our lives differently. In MBSR class, we will learn

These two interventions have also been proven efficacious using randomized controlled trial (RCT) and the test period for both of them is 30 days.

Reniscow et al (2015) conducted a clustered randomized clinical trial with level II evidence. The three group intervention trial was randomly assigned. All providers and staff were oriented on current treatment guidelines.

Most definitions of empathy are based on the same core idea - empathy is the ability to understand and identify someone else’s thoughts and feelings, as if they were one’s own (wordreference online dictionary, 2016). Although it’s been said “there are probably nearly as many definitions of empathy as people working on the topic.” (de Vignemont & Singer, 2006, p.435) suggesting that there is no singular way to even define empathy, let alone explain its impact on our behaviour. Due to the sheer depth and complexity of empathy it’s understandable that each discipline within psychology presents it’s own explanation for why we experience it, and how it can affect our interaction with the world around us. Psychologists have been exploring empathy for decades, in hope of gaining a complete grasp of what it means and how it can vary between each person, therefore its important we look at different psychological perspectives to try to understand it’s many dimensions.

The results can also be supported by previous studies such as the study of Hindman where he found that MBSR is capable in reducing stress. The changes could be measured in university students for both conditions also by testing their psychological distress (Hindman,