Context
Integral to emotional intelligence (EI), empathy is frequently studied in medical students. While important, given the implications for patient safety and physician well-being, traits such as self-regard may also affect physician efficacy. Emotional intelligence offers a holistic framework from which to study empathy, allowing it to be explored with coexisting traits and offering opportunities to identify related risk factors.
Objective
To identify trends in osteopathic medical student EI to help mitigate burnout, with specific attention to empathy and self-regard.
Methods
Eight hundred eighty-five students at Western University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific from classes 2014-2016 were offered the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i) at the start of school, completion of their second year, and at graduation. Participants completed all 3 inventories, yielding a response rate of 16.3%. Repeated measurement analysis of variance analyses were conducted using SAS software for Windows version 9.3.
Results
A total of 144 students participated. The total EI score shifted from mean (SD) 100.2 (12.4) at baseline to 96.1 (12.8) midway to 96.8 (13.3) at graduation (P=.0161) with significant decreases between baseline and midway (P<.001) and baseline and final administrations (P<.001). Empathy declined from 103 (13.1) to 99.9 (12.7) to 99.6 (12.6) (P=.0481) with significant decreases between baseline and midway (P<.001) and baseline and final administrations (P<.001). Self-regard declined from 98.6 (14.1) to 95.8 (15.1) to 95.5 (14.7) (P=.135) with significant decreases between baseline and midway (P=.0021) and baseline and final administrations (P<.001).
Conclusion
This study's findings support further investigation of potential roles played by EI, empathy, and self-regard in physician burnout.
There was no mention of the American Osteopathic Association Guidelines for Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment (OMT) for Patients With Low Back Pain, 3 which strongly recommends OMT for patients with acute or chronic LBP. However, despite these limitations, this study clearly sheds light on the substandard care of LBP, raises concerns about what percentage of DOs comply with the American Osteopathic Association's guidelines, and brings into question how many patients have access to recommended care.
This first-of-its-kind functional connectivity study opens the door to consider how what the osteopathic physician is thinking about while applying osteopathic manipulative treatment may affect patient outcomes. This study also illustrates possible empirical evaluation of the "body-mind-spirit" aspect of osteopathic philosophy in clinical practice, especially osteopathic manipulative treatment.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.