Empathy burn-out and the use of gut feeling: a cross-sectional survey of Danish general practitioners

摘要

ObjectiveResearch has suggested that physicians’ gut feelings are associated with parents’ concerns for the well-being of their children. Gut feeling is particularly important in diagnosis of serious low-incidence diseases in primary care. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine whether empathy, that is, the ability to understand what another person is experiencing, relates to general practitioners’ (GPs) use of gut feelings. Since empathy is associated with burn-out, we also examined whether the hypothesised influence of empathy on gut feeling use is dependent on level of burn-out.