Empathy-based therapeutic communication and patient satisfaction: A scoping review
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33024/min.v9i8.4156
Empathy Patient-Centered Care Patient Satisfaction Therapeutic Communication
Abstract
Background: Empathy-based therapeutic communication is an essential component of patient-centered healthcare, contributing to therapeutic relationships, trust, care experiences, and patient satisfaction. Although evidence of the benefits of empathic communication continues to grow, findings remain dispersed across clinical settings and have not been comprehensively mapped.
Purpose: To identify and map forms of empathy-based therapeutic communication and their reported associations with patient satisfaction across healthcare settings.
Method: This scoping review was conducted in accordance with the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology and reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR). A literature search was conducted in Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar for articles published between 2020 and 2026. Study selection was guided by the Population–Concept–Context (PCC) framework. Data were extracted, charted, and synthesized descriptively to map study characteristics, forms of empathy-based therapeutic communication, and reported outcomes.
Results: A total of 28 articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in the final synthesis. The findings identified several forms of empathy-based therapeutic communication, including nurse–patient communication, patient-centered communication, shared decision-making, empathic physician–patient communication, family-inclusive communication, and structured communication models such as AIDET. Overall, the included studies reported that empathic, responsive, and patient-centered communication was associated with greater patient satisfaction, increased trust in healthcare professionals, stronger therapeutic relationships, greater patient involvement in decision-making, and more positive care experiences.
Conclusion: Empathy-based therapeutic communication appears to be an important component of patient-centered healthcare and is associated with positive patient satisfaction outcomes across diverse healthcare settings. The findings highlight the need to develop more standardized approaches to empathy-based therapeutic communication and to conduct further research examining their implementation and effectiveness across different clinical contexts.
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