A 60-something neighbor of mine felt uncomfortable and self-conscious when she started wearing eyeglasses. But when she asked her ophthalmologist about contact lenses, he scoffed, “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re too old to be so vain.”

Does that scream “insensitive jerk” to you? It did to me! So I encouraged my neighbor to go elsewhere for her eye care, saying that she deserved an empathetic doctor who would take her concerns seriously and treat her with respect.

I’m glad that she followed through—because when doctors lack empathy, the consequences can go far beyond hurt feelings, actually putting patients’ health at risk, a recent study shows.

The proof: Participants included 242 primary-care doctors along with 20,961 diabetes patients who were under their care. Researchers used a questionnaire to measure the physicians’ empathy—meaning their understanding of patients’ concerns, suffering and perspectives, plus their ability to communicate this understanding and intention to help. For the questionnaire, doctors chose responses ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” to various statements, some of which suggested empathy (such as, “My patients feel better when I understand their feelings”)…and some of which suggested a lack of empathy (such as, “I believe that emotion has no place in the treatment of medical illness”). Based on their responses, the doctors’ empathy scores were classified as high, moderate or low.

Researchers also consulted patient records to see which patients ended up in the hospital with acute metabolic complications—dangerously high blood sugar, dangerously low insulin and/or diabetic coma—during the one-year study follow-up period. Then they analyzed the data to discern any link between the doctors’ empathy scores and their patients’ risk for complications.

Startling finding: The rate of complications among patients whose doctors scored high on empathy was 41% lower than that of patients whose doctors scored low on empathy. Interestingly, the patients of moderate-empathy doctors fared no better than those of low-empathy doctors.

You might wonder whether patients’ ability to pay for services could have influenced the results. The answer is no, because the study was conducted in Italy, which has a universal health-care system that covers everyone. It’s also interesting to note that the study results held no matter what age or gender the doctors were.

Why does empathy matter so much? Empathy from physicians lays the foundation for trusting relationships. This trust encourages patients to speak more openly about their symptoms, behaviors and concerns, thus providing doctors with additional diagnostic clues and opportunities to communicate health-care advice. Also, patients may feel more motivated to comply with treatments recommended by doctors they like and trust.

While this study focused only on diabetes patients and primary-care physicians, it seems reasonable that the results also would apply to other health-care relationships, particularly those involving long-term continuity of care. More research is needed to confirm that.

In the meantime: If you think that your physician falls short in the empathy department, why not initiate a heart-to-heart? And if that doesn’t help, I’d suggest doing as my neighbor did—and finding a nicer doctor.