Clinician Interruptions and Patient-Rated Clinician Empathy in Specialty Visits

Clinicians tend to interrupt patients when they are describing their problem, which may contribute to feeling unheard or misunderstood. Using transcripts of audio and video recordings from musculoskeletal (MSK) specialty visits, we asked what factors are associated with (1) Perceived clinician empathy, including the time a patient spends describing the problem and time to the first interruption, (2) duration of patient symptom description, and (3) duration between the end of greeting and first nonactive listening interruption.

We analyzed transcripts of 194 adult patients seeking MSK specialty care with a median age (Interquartile range [IQR]) of 47 (33 to 59) years. Participants completed postvisit measures of perceived clinician empathy, symptoms of depression, accommodation of pain, and health anxiety. A nonactive listening interruption was defined as the clinician unilaterally redirecting the topic of conversation. Factors associated with patient-rated clinician empathy, patient problem description duration, and time until the first nonactive listening interruption were sought in bivariate and multivariable analyses.

The patient's narrative was interrupted at least one time in 144 visits (74%). The duration of each visit was a median of 12 minutes (IQR 9 to 16 minutes). The median time patients spent describing their symptoms was 139 seconds before the first interruption (IQR 84 to 225 seconds). The median duration between the end of the initial greeting and the first interruption was 60 seconds (IQR 30 to 103 seconds). Clinician interruption was associated with shorter duration of symptom description. Greater perceived clinician empathy was associated with greater accommodation of pain (regression coefficient [95% confidence interval] = 0.015 [0.0005-0.30]; P = 0.04).

Clinician interruption was associated with shorter symptom presentation, but not with diminished perception of clinician empathy. Although active listening and avoidance of interruption are important communication tactics, other aspects of the patient-clinician relationship may have more effect on patient experience.