Residents' and standardized patients' perspectives on empathy: issues of agreement.

Objective: We investigated correlations between residents' scores on the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE), residents' perceptions of their empathy during standardized-patient encounters, and the perceptions of standardized patients.

Methods: Participants were 214 first-year residents in internal medicine or family medicine from 13 residency programs taking standardized patient-based clinical skills assessment in 2011. We analyzed correlations between residents' JSE scores; standardized patients' perspectives on residents' empathy during OSCE encounters, using the Jefferson Scale of Patient Perceptions of Physician Empathy; and residents' perspectives on their own empathy, using a modified version of this scale.

Results: Residents' JSE scores correlated with their perceptions of their own empathy during encounters but correlated poorly with patients' assessments of resident empathy.

Conclusion: The poor correlation between residents' and standardized patients' assessments of residents' empathy raises questions about residents' abilities to gauge the effectiveness of their empathic communications. The study also points to a lack of congruence between the assessment of empathy by standardized patients and residents as receivers and conveyors of empathy, respectively.

Practice Implications: This study adds to the literature on empathy as a teachable skill set and raises questions about use of OSCEs to assess trainee empathy.