Relational Empathy, Holistic Care, and Quality of Life in Persons With Spinal Cord Injuries: A Cross-sectional Study

High-quality health systems are built on the concept of patient-centered approach, which includes holistic care and empathy. With time, this has progressively been recognized as a valuable paradigm for better health outcomes, particularly in chronic diseases.

The study aims to determine the patients' perception during their consultation and to assess the relationship between Consultation and Relational Empathy measure with demographic/injury variables and quality of life.

The present cross-sectional study was conducted among 226 individuals with spinal cord injuries. Data were collected via structured questionnaire, World Health Organization-Quality of life BREF, and Consultation and Relational Empathy measure. Independent t test is used to compare World Health Organization-Quality of life BREF domains with two groups of Consultation and Relational Empathy measure. Logistic regression was used to determine the significant factors of Consultation and Relational Empathy measure.

In the logistic regression analysis, it was observed that higher quality of life score has significantly higher odds of getting higher Consultation and Relational Empathy score with a remarkable odds ratio (odds ratio = 1.0264, 95% confidence interval = 1.0121-1.0261, P = 0.0001, 0.0472, 0.0001).

The quality of life of the present population is closely associated with greater perceptions of holistic care and empathy in the therapeutic patient-provider relationship. Lack of coordination, poor quality of life, and limited communication between patient and provider may arise when the latter focuses only on treating disease rather than treating a patient as a "whole person."