Objectives:

To access the perception of individuals with type 2 diabetes on physicians’ empathy and to evaluate their empowerment to the disease. To determine if and in which way clinical empathy and patient empowerment are related to diabetes metabolic control and search for correlations between them.

Methods:

A cross-sectional descriptive and analytical study was led among a random sample of 65 individuals with type 2 diabetes, which represents, according to size, the diabetic population of two groups of primary care units from the centre region of Portugal. A questionnaire of sociodemographic and clinical characterization and Portuguese versions of the Jefferson Scale of Patient Perceptions of Physician Empathy (JSPPPE) and Diabetes Empowerment Scale Short Form (DES-SF) were administered on patients’ diabetes medical appointment dates. Subsequently, it was performed descriptive and inferential statistics after testing the normality of the data.

Results:

The final score of JSPPPE was 6.3±1.0 (95% confidence interval from 6.1 to 6.6) and the DES-SF score average was 4.4±0.6 (95% confidence interval from 4.3 to 4.6). It was found a weak positive correlation without statistical meaning

between the average value of HbA1c and the JSPPPE score (ρ=0.346; p=0.119). It was established a significant association between the final DES-SF average and the mean of the two last recorded values of HbA1c (ρ=-0.282; p=0.023), as well as between the final DES-SF score and JSPPPE score (ρ=0.495; p<0.001).

Discussion:

Perception of physician’s empathy has proven to be significantly related to patient diabetes empowerment and a significant correlation was found between diabetes empowerment and diabetes metabolic control.

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