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Empathy and Occupational Health and Well-Being in Ecuadorian Physicians Working with COVID-19 Patients: A Mixed-Method Study

Approximately one out of ten COVID-19 cases in Ecuador was a physician. It has been reported that this situation has led to a serious detriment of physicians’ health and well-being. This study aimed to (i) identify predictors of emotional exhaustion, somatization, and work alienation in Ecuadorian p...

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Autores principales: Matiz-Moya, Estefan, Delgado Bolton, Roberto C., García-Gómez, Esperanza, Vivanco, Luis
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10138593/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37108011
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11081177
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author Matiz-Moya, Estefan
Delgado Bolton, Roberto C.
García-Gómez, Esperanza
Vivanco, Luis
author_facet Matiz-Moya, Estefan
Delgado Bolton, Roberto C.
García-Gómez, Esperanza
Vivanco, Luis
author_sort Matiz-Moya, Estefan
collection PubMed
description Approximately one out of ten COVID-19 cases in Ecuador was a physician. It has been reported that this situation has led to a serious detriment of physicians’ health and well-being. This study aimed to (i) identify predictors of emotional exhaustion, somatization, and work alienation in Ecuadorian physicians working with COVID-19 patients and (ii) explore the pandemic impact on doctor–patient relationships and on empathy. In 79 Ecuadorian physicians (45 women) who worked with COVID-19 patients, two separate multiple regression models explained the following: 73% of the variability of emotional exhaustion was based on somatization, work alienation, working sector, and passing through a symptomatic infection (p < 0.001), and 56% of the variability of somatization was based on gender and emotional exhaustion (p < 0.001), respectively. Furthermore, intention to leave the profession was more frequent among physicians with greater work alienation (p = 0.003). On the contrary, more empathic physicians never considered leaving their profession during the COVID-19 pandemic (p = 0.03). In physicians’ verbatim, cognitive empathy appeared associated to a positive change in doctor–patient relationships. On the contrary, having an overwhelming emotional empathy appeared associated to a negative change in doctor–patient relationships. These findings characterize differences in how physicians cope while working in the frontline of the pandemic.
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spelling pubmed-101385932023-04-28 Empathy and Occupational Health and Well-Being in Ecuadorian Physicians Working with COVID-19 Patients: A Mixed-Method Study Matiz-Moya, Estefan Delgado Bolton, Roberto C. García-Gómez, Esperanza Vivanco, Luis Healthcare (Basel) Article Approximately one out of ten COVID-19 cases in Ecuador was a physician. It has been reported that this situation has led to a serious detriment of physicians’ health and well-being. This study aimed to (i) identify predictors of emotional exhaustion, somatization, and work alienation in Ecuadorian physicians working with COVID-19 patients and (ii) explore the pandemic impact on doctor–patient relationships and on empathy. In 79 Ecuadorian physicians (45 women) who worked with COVID-19 patients, two separate multiple regression models explained the following: 73% of the variability of emotional exhaustion was based on somatization, work alienation, working sector, and passing through a symptomatic infection (p < 0.001), and 56% of the variability of somatization was based on gender and emotional exhaustion (p < 0.001), respectively. Furthermore, intention to leave the profession was more frequent among physicians with greater work alienation (p = 0.003). On the contrary, more empathic physicians never considered leaving their profession during the COVID-19 pandemic (p = 0.03). In physicians’ verbatim, cognitive empathy appeared associated to a positive change in doctor–patient relationships. On the contrary, having an overwhelming emotional empathy appeared associated to a negative change in doctor–patient relationships. These findings characterize differences in how physicians cope while working in the frontline of the pandemic. MDPI 2023-04-19 /pmc/articles/PMC10138593/ /pubmed/37108011 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11081177 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Matiz-Moya, Estefan
Delgado Bolton, Roberto C.
García-Gómez, Esperanza
Vivanco, Luis
Empathy and Occupational Health and Well-Being in Ecuadorian Physicians Working with COVID-19 Patients: A Mixed-Method Study
title Empathy and Occupational Health and Well-Being in Ecuadorian Physicians Working with COVID-19 Patients: A Mixed-Method Study
title_full Empathy and Occupational Health and Well-Being in Ecuadorian Physicians Working with COVID-19 Patients: A Mixed-Method Study
title_fullStr Empathy and Occupational Health and Well-Being in Ecuadorian Physicians Working with COVID-19 Patients: A Mixed-Method Study
title_full_unstemmed Empathy and Occupational Health and Well-Being in Ecuadorian Physicians Working with COVID-19 Patients: A Mixed-Method Study
title_short Empathy and Occupational Health and Well-Being in Ecuadorian Physicians Working with COVID-19 Patients: A Mixed-Method Study
title_sort empathy and occupational health and well-being in ecuadorian physicians working with covid-19 patients: a mixed-method study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10138593/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37108011
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11081177
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