Cross sectional assessment of empathy among undergraduates from a medical college

Abstract

Undergraduate medical studentsChoice of specialty a b s t r a c t Background: Empathy is essentially a desirable quality among clinicians and can be developed during medical education. Studies from outside India have shown that higher empathy is related to better competency and choice of specialty may be related to empathy levels in them. Change in empathy levels among undergraduate medical students with progressive training has been often ascribed to reasons such as curriculum content, timing of clinical rotations. Gender differences in empathy levels also vary among different countries. Since many of such factors differ in India there is a need therefore to understand empathy and its correlates among medical students in India.Method: A cross sectional study was undertaken in a large medical college among the undergraduates of first, third, fifth, seventh and ninth semesters to measure their empathy levels. The evaluation was done using the Jefferson's Scale for Physician's Empathy-Student version.Results: The study revealed highest empathy at entry level and a significant fall by seventh semester (p ¼ 0.002). Female students had significantly higher empathy levels than male students (p ¼ 0.012) across all semesters. The variance in empathy scores according specialty chosen is not statistically significant (p ¼ 0.2468). Conclusion:The progressive decline in empathy levels with years in medical college here is seen much later than in western studies. Female students are more empathetic than male students. The relation of mean empathy scores and choice of specialty is inconclusive and at variance from other studies.ª 2014, Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS). All rights reserved.* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ91 9657167900 (mobile). E-mail address: sribuj@yahoo.com (R. Shashikumar).Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect journal homepage: w ww.el sevier.com/locate/mjafi m e d i c a l j o u r n a l a r m e d f o r c e s i n d i a 7 0 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 1 7 9 e1 8 5

Is the Empathy Level of Medical Students at KAU Changeable along their Study Years? What is behind this Change?

“…The JSPE validated in many previous studies [3,7,9] and it was adopted after permission. The questionnaire is self-administered and it is composed of two sections: the first one included the demographic data.…”

“…Education and Health Careat Jefferson Medical College, to measure the level of empathy among physicians and other health professionals [3].The hypothesis that empathy declines as students' progress through medical school has previously investigated in many Asian countries like Japan [4], South Korea [5], China [6], Iran [7], Bangladesh [8] and India [9], some Arabic countries as Kuwait [10], as well as other countries like UK [11], USA [12], Brazil [13] and German [14] by using the student version of Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE). To our knowledge, the empathy with patients among the Saudi medical students has not been studied till now.…”

Study on Empathy among Undergraduate Students of the Medical Profession in Nepal

“…Clinician empathy is a key communication skill that forms a part of patient-centred care; a broad approach to clinical work that has emerged in the past couple of decades and has been formalised and included in many codes of conduct and guidelines published by medical colleges [19] [33]. The key principle of patient-centred care is that the clinical process aims to focus on the patient rather than their disease, test results or possible interventions [25].…”

“…All analyses were conducted using the latest version of a statistical software package (SPSS V. 19) Participants were explained the purpose of the study. It was also stated that Journal of Biosciences and Medicines participation identity will be kept anonymous and participation was voluntary but returning the questionnaire would be taken as consent to participate.…”

“…An emerging paradigm views empathy as the backbone of patient care and natural human emotion [19] [20] [21] in the context of the doctor-patient relationship. It is the doctor's ability to cognitively recognize a patient's perspectives and experiences, and convey such an understanding back to the patient [22] [23].…”