Empathy in Adults with Acquired Brain Injury: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Social Cognition

Background:

• Empathy, the ability to recognize, share, and understand others' emotional states, is crucial for social functioning.
• Acquired brain injury (ABI) can impact empathy, but existing research presents inconsistent findings and small sample sizes.
• This study addresses these limitations by providing the first meta-analytic review of empathy in adults with ABI.

Purpose of the Study:

• To quantify empathy impairments in adults with ABI across cognitive, affective, empathic concern, and personal distress domains.
• To estimate the prevalence of empathy deficits in each domain.
• To explore potential moderating effects of demographic and injury factors on empathy impairment.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search identifying 29 studies comparing self-reported empathy in adults with ABI versus healthy controls.
• Random-effects meta-analyses were conducted to synthesize findings across studies.
• Prevalence of deficits was estimated using normative data (1 SD below the mean).

Main Results:

• Significant moderate deficits were found in cognitive empathy (Hedges' g = -0.68) and affective empathy (Hedges' g = -0.43).
• Small-to-moderate deficits were observed in empathic concern (Hedges' g = -0.38).
• No significant difference was found for personal distress; estimated prevalence of deficits ranged from 15.3% to 35.0% across subcomponents.

Conclusions:

• Empathy deficits, particularly in cognitive and affective components, are prevalent following ABI and impact social and emotional functioning.
• Findings underscore the necessity of routine clinical assessment of empathy in ABI survivors.
• Interventions should be developed to target both cognitive and affective aspects of empathy to improve outcomes.