Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies
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Focus Alternat Complement Ther©2005 Pharmaceutical Press
Focus Altern Complement Ther 2002; 7: 102
The Patient Enablement Instrument (PEI) is has recently been used to assess quality of consultations in general practice, but not in other settings. Our aim was to investigate enablement and related factors, at the Glasgow Homoeopathic Hospital (GHH), a NHS-funded integrated complementary and orthodox medicine unit.
Initial study of 200 consecutive outpatients attending four doctors at GHH with a follow-up study of 74 patients 12 months later. Enablement and a range of other factors were measured by questionnaire. The follow-up study measured health outcome, using the GHH Outcome Scale.
The mean PEI score in the initial study was 4.7, indicating a high level of patient enablement. Although there were numerous correlations with enablement, multi-regression analysis showed patients’ expectation, doctor’s empathy (as perceived by the patient) and doctors’ own confidence in the therapeutic relationship to be the three key factors, together accounting for 41% of the variation in enablement, with empathy being the single most important factor (66% of the explained variation in enablement). Although empathy did not necessarily result in enablement, there were no cases of high enablement with low empathy. The follow-up study showed that the enablement was significantly correlated with subsequent health outcome 12 months later.
Patients receiving holistic care at the Glasgow Homoeopathic Hospital are enabled by the consultations, and this is related to the doctors’ empathy. Enablement at consultation is associated with subsequent health gain.
