Safeguarding Compassion in Virtual Family Physician Care

Article Figures & Data

Table 1.

Declaration of Author’s Experiences

Author	Credentials and Expertise
BLR	PhD Epidemiologist with experience in mixed methods primary care research.
JBB	PhD in Social Work with expertise in qualitative research.
TRF	Family physician and researcher with experience in qualitative research.
MD	MSc in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and has experience with qualitative primary care research.
MS	PhD Epidemiologist and has conducted multimethod studies of patient-centered interventions for persons with multimorbidity.
ALT	PhD Epidemiologist and teaches qualitative methods.

Table 2.

Characteristics of Participants

	Interviews		Collaborative Discussions
Characteristic	Patients (n = 19)	Family Physicians (n = 14)	Patients (n = 6)	Family Physicians (n = 4)
Age (x̄, Standard Deviation (SD))	66.4, 16.2	47.9, 13.3	63.8, 24.7	55, 10.7
Gender (n, %)
Man	3, 16%	5, 36%	2, 33%	1, 25%
Woman	15, 79%	9, 64%	4, 67%	3, 75%
Non-binary	1, 5%	0, 0%	0, 0%	0, 0%
Race (n)
Caucasian	16	11	5	3
Other	3	7	1	1
Years in Practice (x̄, SD)	N/A	17.9, 14.9	N/A	24, 13
Self-reported health conditions (n)
Arthritis	13	N/A	2	N/A
Cancer	4	N/A	2	N/A
Diabetes	5	N/A	0	N/A
Gastrointestinal	3	N/A	2	N/A
Hypertension	4	N/A	2	N/A
Mental Health	7	N/A	3	N/A
Musculoskeletal conditions	9	N/A	6	N/A
Other	18	N/A	7	N/A
Self-described rating of health (n, %)
Good to Excellent	16, 84%	N/A	5, 83%	N/A
Fair	2, 11%	N/A	1, 17%	N/A
Poor	1, 5%	N/A	0, 0%	N/A

Table 3.

Considerations for Family Physicians to Support Compassionate Virtual Care from Our Findings

Theme	Considerations
(1) Conveying Virtual Compassion through Actions	Listen to a deeper degree, expressing that you are listening and understanding the importance of the patient’s statements, using verbal cues and listening in silence Inquire and attend to a patient’s context and humanity as well as medical concerns, being aware that context may be harder to discern when not seeing non-verbal behavior Create a plan with your patient as you would in an in-person visit
(2) External Factors Supporting or Hindering Virtual Compassion	Be aware that you may be more easily distracted in virtual visits; remove distractions when at all possible Verbalize what you are doing and why (e.g. typing notes in the patient chart) when the patient cannot see you Develop a method to inform the patient when you are running behind Understand that the patient may have other commitments and if you are running behind, this may cause considerable anxiety for your patients
(3) Using Virtual Visits to Extend Compassionate Care	Offer virtual visits to extend care, allowing more points of access or a bridge between in-person visits
(4) The Patient-FP Relationship as the Bedrock of Virtual Compassionate Care	Use every visit, including virtual visits, as an opportunity to build the patient-family physician relationship