Empathic communication during a pandemic: How can we minimize the deficit?

Communication is essential to the management of all chronic diseases including those treated by rheumatologists. To help the patient manage their disease, they need to achieve several things: sufficient understanding of the disease, the pros and cons of different possible interventions and how best to self-manage the disease, including how to cope with flares and when to ask for help. Communication is complex even when all modalities are available, but is severely diminished when done remotely, even with video, as we are all now learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source: Rheumatology - Category: Rheumatology Source Type: research