A cross-sectional study of student empathy across four medical schools in Denmark—associations between empathy level and age, sex, specialty preferences and motivation

Abstract

Background Professional empathy has been associated with a range of positive patient- and clinician outcomes and is therefore considered important to develop for future physicians. Measuring changes in empathy scores among medical students by using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (Student version) (JSE-S) has led to mixed results. So far, no investigation of Danish medical students’ empathy development has been conducted. The aim of this study was therefore to examine the associations between empathy scores among Danish medical students and medical school, year of curriculum, age, sex, co-habitation, and parental status, specialty preferences and motivations for choosing medicine as a future profession. Methods This was a cross-sectional questionnaire study. All medical students from four medical schools in Denmark in their first, third and sixth year (N = 4,178) were invited to participate in the study in October 2020. The associations between JSE-S sum score and the above explanatory factors were analysed by uni- and multivariable linear regression models. Results The JSE-S was completed by 672 medical students. The overall mean score was 112.7. There were no statistically significant differences in empathy between medical schools, first, third- and sixth- year medical students, age groups or parental status. Female students and students living with a spouse or partner scored higher on JSE-S than male students or students living alone, and the sex difference remained statistically significant in the multivariable regression. In both the univariable and multivariable setting, preference for future medical specialty was statistically significant, with a decrease in scores for students choosing surgery-specialties. Motivational factors were not statistically significantly associated with empathy, although there was a slight upwards trend for one of the motivational categories, named “personal experiences”. Conclusions Overall, our results showed neither decrease nor increase but instead rather stable empathy scores across years of curriculum of medical students in Denmark, adding to the mixed picture of empathy development among medical students. Our findings are consistent with positive associations found in international studies between empathy scores and higher age, female sex, specialty preferences for psychiatry and general practice and altruistic motivations for choosing to enroll. Although specialty preferences are changing during medical education, they may be used meaningfully as predictors of individual student empathy levels.

Spiritual needs in Denmark: a population-based cross-sectional survey linked to Danish national registers

“…This response rate is similar to other population-based studies in Denmark. 54 , 55 Surprisingly, those with chronic diseases and people who were relatively less religious than the general Danish population were more prevalent among respondents. Third, given the taboo surrounding spiritual matters in Denmark, a self-report bias in the survey data is realistic but would most likely underestimate the needs experienced, making our estimates conservative.…”

The Greek Jefferson Scale of Empathy—Medical Student Version (JSE-S): Psychometric Properties and Its Associated Factors

“…This finding is in line with the minority of prior studies. Some studies confirm that undergraduate medical students who are inclined to choose “specialties that require continuous and prolonged encounters with patients” (“people-oriented” specialties, such as pediatrics, family medicine, general internal medicine, and psychiatry) receive significantly higher empathy scores than those inclined to choose specialties that do not require continuous and prolonged encounters with patients (“technology/procedure-oriented” specialties, such as pathology, radiology, anesthesiology, and surgical specialties) [ 14 , 28 , 37 , 41 , 50 , 58 , 60 , 64 , 67 , 68 , 76 , 81 , 84 , 85 , 101 , 109 ]. Luna et al combined gender and career preference and concluded: “men, preference for technology-oriented specialty, less empathy.…”

“…Nasiri et al (in Iran) “the total mean score of empathy was 98.15 ± 13.29” [ 99 ]. Assing Hvidt et al (in Denmark) found that “The overall mean score was 112.7” (SD = 10.8) [ 109 ].…”

Relationships between undergraduate medical students’ attitudes toward communication skills learning and demographics in Zambia: a survey-based descriptive study

“…The association between female gender and positive attitudes to communication, empathy, and patient-centeredness could be due to the long-lasting stereotypical classification of women as mainly caretakers and linguistically verbose [ 12 ]; in contrast, task-oriented men could perform their duties as physicians despite limitations in their communicative abilities. Such stereotypes would continue to limit healthcare standards if not addressed during medical training.…”