More Than a Feeling: The Role of Empathetic Care in Promoting Safety in Health Care

Carrie Leana, Jirs Meuris and Cait Lamberton

ILR Review, 2018, vol. 71, issue 2, 394-425

Abstract: In this article, the authors use inductive and deductive methods to explore the role of empathy in care-giving jobs: specifically, the relationship between empathetic care and patient safety. The authors argue that empathetic care is evidenced by extra-role behavior, emotional engagement, and relational richness between paid caregivers and clients. They develop a model using qualitative interviews with paid caregivers and test it using quantitative case studies in six skilled-nursing facilities. Findings show that empathetic care predicts patient safety, but only under some circumstances. Specifically, patient load, overtime work, and financial hardship dampen the otherwise positive relationship between empathetic care and safety. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for the design of care jobs.

Keywords: health care; labor and employment policies; linked employer–employee data; job skills; organizational behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://ilr.sagepub.com/content/71/2/394.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:71:y:2018:i:2:p:394-425

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in ILR Review from Cornell University, ILR School
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().