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Article

The Empathic Process and Misconceptions that Lead to Burnout in Healthcare Professionals

  • Marta Villacieros (a1), Ricardo Olmos (a2) and José Carlos Bermejo (a1)
Abstract

Empathy has been identified as a relevant variable in order to predict burnout in healthcare professionals. In addition, assertiveness and self-esteem have been considered relevant variables to develop empathic capacity. In the other hand, misconceptions surrounding empathy constitute a risk factor for burnout. Two adult samples (N = 252 and N = 275) were used to explore and confirm the underlying structure of two questionnaires. The Exercise of Process of Empathy (EPE) scale (18 items) confirmatory factor analysis including 5 dimensions (cognitive and emotional comprehension, attention, clarity and assertiveness), showed reasonable goodness- of-fit indices χ2(130) = 269.63, p < .001; RMSEA = .069 90% CI [0.058 – 0.079]; CFI = .965; TLI = .959. Alpha coefficient resulted .848. Common Misconceptions (EH) of empathy scale (16 items) confirmatory factor analysis, including 3 dimensions (feeling, confluence and character misconceptions) also obtained reasonable goodness-of-fit indices χ 2 (101) = 250.59, p < .001; RMSEA = .075 90% CI [0.063 – 0.087]; CFI = .952; TLI = .943. Alpha coefficient for Character resulted .727 (5 items), for Confluence .764 (5 items) and for Feeling .822 (6 items). The SEM model’s R 2 resulted .303, being EH (misconceptions) a risk factor (b* = .171), EPE (empathy process) a protection factor (b* = –.183). The model partially explains how misconceptions empathy process and self-esteem (b* = –.334) relate to burnout syndrome in healthcare professionals; what is more, it heralds a potential means to prevent it.

Copyright
COPYRIGHT: © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2017 
Corresponding author
*Corresponding concerning this article should be addressed to Marta Villacieros. Departamento de Investigación del Centro de Humanización de la Salud. Sector Escultores, 39. Tres Cantos. 28760 Madrid (Spain). E-mail: investigacion@humanizar.es
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How to cite this article:

Villacieros, M., Olmos, R., & Bermejo, J.C. (2017). The empathic process and misconceptions that lead to burnout in healthcare professionals. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 20. e68. Doi:10.1017/sjp.2017.66

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The Spanish Journal of Psychology
  • ISSN: 1138-7416
  • EISSN: 1988-2904
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