Improv: a tool to boost empathy in health care
An improv (improvisation) performance can promote empathy in healthcare workers, suggests a new study.
Research from the Rocky Vista University, Edith Cowan University (ECU) and Midwestern University involved 165 students studying healthcare professions. They participated in an improv session and were tasked with several improv activities. Their self-reported empathy scores were assessed at three time points (pre-improv, post-improv and end of semester).
The findings showed that a single one- or two-hour improv session can promote substantial increases in healthcare students’ empathy for one another.
Listening, connection and shared experience
Improvisational skills are known to be central to the success of actors fostering empathy for one another. This study measured whether improv could benefit healthcare students in a similar way.
The exercises in the study required students to pay attention to the words and actions of their classmates and to participate actively in simple activities, which may make them feel vulnerable and nervous, but doing so in a team and collegial atmosphere, foster support and a sense of teamwork.
The lead author of the study, Dr Brian D Schwartz from Rocky Vista University, said being placed in this situation caused students to focus on their classmates, to evaluate both verbal and non-verbal communication methods, and created an environment where they actively worked together to ensure any measure of success or completion.
“We believe that empathy is developed and deepened in this circumstance through a heightened requirement to truly listen, actively and presently, and forge a connection with classmates and teammates based on a sense of shared experience,” he said.
A tool to complement other methods for fostering empathy
ECU psychology researcher Dr Shane Rogers said healthcare practitioners used affective empathy, ie, sympathy, to sense patients’ feelings, and cognitive empathy to understand the kind and quality of patients’ experiences.
“Health practitioners should ‘feel patients’ pain’ but not in a way that impairs ‘understanding their suffering’,” he said.
Rogers recommended the incorporation of regular improv sessions throughout the course of healthcare students’ training.
“Greater healthcare professional empathy and compassion foster better healthcare team cooperation and patient outcomes, so healthcare professionals and their students should engage in empathy-enhancing activities at regular intervals throughout their training and careers,” he said.
“Improv is one tool to complement other more direct methods of fostering empathy, such as asking students to write critical reflections from patients’ perspectives.”
Future research
The authors recommended further research to understand how improv activities can be best incorporated into healthcare provider education, and the best practices for improvisation techniques regarding the content, duration and frequency of sessions.
The paper, titled Substantial Increases in Healthcare Students’ State Empathy Scores Owing to Participation in a Single Improvisation Session, was published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
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