Patient education and counseling
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To establish sound empirical evidence that clinical empathy (abbreviated as CE) is a core element in the clinician-patient relationship with profound therapeutic potential, a substantial theoretical-based understanding of CE in medical care and medical education is still required. The two aims of the present paper are, therefore, (1) to give a multidisciplinary overview of the "nature" and "specific effectiveness" of CE, and (2) to use this base as a means of deriving relevant questions for a theory-based research agenda. ⋯ Due to the complexity and multidimensionality of CE, evidence-based investigations of the derived hypotheses require both well-designed qualitative and quantitative studies as well as an interdisciplinary research approach.