Oligoanalgesia is the undertreatment of pain. Evidence suggests that there is a disparity between the amount of pain medication given the African Americans versus non-Hispanic Whites, even when patients presenting the same medical history and expression of pain. Researchers sought to explore the relationship between empathy and pain medication provision through a randomized controlled intervention.

Undergraduates instructed to act as they would if they were physicians were randomly assigned to either a control condition or a perspective taking intervention. Participants assigned to the control condition were initially instructed to make the “”best, most accurate treatment decisions for each patient,”” and were reminded of this goal by the statement “”try to make your best treatment decisions”” prior to viewing a patient video. Participants assigned to the intervention received the same instructions, except they were additionally instructed to “”attempt to imagine how each of your patients feels while you are examining them,”” at the beginning of the experiment. They were reminded of this goal before viewing each video by the statement “”try to imagine how your patient feels about his or her pain and how this pain is affecting his or her life,”” and were told to “”spend a moment imagining how your patient feels about his or her pain and how this pain is affecting their life”” after viewing each video.

Researchers analyzed mean level differences in pain treatment for White vs Black patients in the control group and the perspective taking intervention group. The results are shown in the figure below. White patients received higher mean levels of pain treatment than Black patients. Participants also exhibited an average pro-White empathy. Analysis also indicated that individual differences in empathy were highly correlated with individual differences in pain treatment.

Figure 1. Pain treatment as predicted by patient race and perspective-taking intervention.

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