A Visual Arts Activity to Support Residents as They Care for "Difficult Patients"

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Clinical Psychology
• Arts in Medicine

Background:

• Challenging patient interactions can increase clinician burnout and distress.
• Clinical empathy, such as perspective-taking, can mitigate these negative effects.
• Art-based methods offer innovative approaches to enhance empathy skills.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the impact of an art-based perspective-taking activity on clinicians' anticipated discomfort with challenging patients.
• To evaluate the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of this novel empathy-building intervention.

Main Methods:

• A museum-based, art-viewing activity was implemented with internal medicine residents and healthcare professionals.
• Participants engaged in perspective-taking by selecting art to represent a challenging patient and reflecting on insights.
• Pre- and post-intervention discomfort ratings were collected and analyzed using paired t-tests and content analysis.

Main Results:

• The art-based activity significantly decreased participants' anticipated discomfort when facing challenging patients (P<.01).
• Qualitative analysis of reflections indicated a shift in focus from self to the patient's perspective.
• The intervention proved to be simple, feasible, and cost-effective, utilizing existing resources.

Conclusions:

• Visual arts-based perspective-taking is an effective strategy for enhancing clinician empathy towards challenging patients.
• This method offers a practical, low-cost solution to improve clinician well-being and patient care.
• The intervention demonstrates potential for integration into medical education and professional development programs.