A study of empathy decline in students from five health disciplines during their first year of training

Abstract

Objectives: This cross-sectional study examines the selfreported empathy levels of undergraduate students in five different health sciences disciplines before and after one year of training at the St Augustine Campus, University of the West Indies. Methods: Students enrolled into the schools of dentistry, pharmacy, medicine, veterinary medicine and nursing self administered the Jefferson Scale of Empathy on entering their first year of training (n=355). Mean empathy scores were then compared between and among groups to scores on retesting at the end (n=366) of their first year using independent t-tests and one way between groups using ANOVA with planned comparisons. Results: Female students and students older than 27 years were found to be more empathic than male students and those less than 21 years respectively. The highest mean empathy scores on entry to university were noted in nursing and dental students. On repeat testing mean empathy scores declined in all 5 groups, with the declines among medical, nursing and dental students achieving statistical significance. Conclusions: This study shows that the decline in self reported empathy scores starts during the first year of training. Whilst this decline may be partly due to a 'settling in' phenomenon with a change from idealism to realism, students may also be displaying an adaptive response to new responsibilities and an increasing workload. With the current trend of blurred professional boundaries for healthcare providers, empathy is an important skill to be developed by all disciplines. Health educators now need to consider addressing those factors that may check its further decline.

Reconsidering the ‘Decline’ of Dental Student Empathy within the Course in Latin America

“…As for the regression curves found in this study, it is possible to note that only in universities of Group C: Magdalena (Colombia) and Concepcion (Chile) the value of the means of empathy increases until the third year and then decrease steadily, are the only ones that coincide with those works that have raised a decline of empathy from third year. 1,2,7,9,[29][30][31] A similar situation occurs in the University of San Martin (Colombia) that grows until the fourth and then decreases in the fifth year (group D). The other dental schools, with the exception of group A, suffer a decline in some of the early years, but then a steadily increase of …”

“…Empathic erosion in medical students and other areas of medical education is an objective fact which is conditioned by many causes, which have been, described elsewhere, 5,[7][8][9][10]29,31 but is not a general phenomenon. [16][17][18]39,40 The importance of the findings in this research is that it poses a dilemma of whether or not there exists empathic decline within the course, and need to determine and measure what are the root causes of this decline and, above all, respond to the finding that it occurs in some of the universities studied and not in others.…”

Cross sectional assessment of empathy among undergraduates from a medical college

“…7 Paula Neures et al had reported decline in empathy not only among medical student but also in dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, and veterinary medicine students. 15 Studies have suggested that female are more receptive to emotions than male, have evolved with more caring attitude towards offspring as compared to male which contributes to better understanding and being more empathetic. 4,16 Hojat et al had found that female students scored significantly higher on empathy than male students among medical students (p < 0.01).…”

Maintaining empathy in medical school: It is possible

“…This finding is contrary to many previous studies which observed a decline in the mean empathy scores, during education, in a variety of health disciplines. (Chen et al, 2007, Ward et al, 2012, Nunes et al, 2011 Although insignificant, it seems that students may have even developed more empathy as they progressed in their training. A cross-sectional study, by Kataoka et al (Kataoka et al, 2012), showed similar findings in Japanese medical students.…”