Revisiting the trajectory of medical students’ empathy, and impact of gender, specialty preferences and nationality: a systematic review

Abstract

Background: Empathy allows a physician to understand the patient's situation and feelings and respond appropriately. Consequently, empathy gives rise to better diagnostics and clinical outcomes. This systematic review investigates the level of empathy among medical students across the number of educational years and how this level relates to gender, specialty preferences, and nationality. Method: In accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), the authors conducted a systematic search of studies published between February 2010 and March 2019 investigating the level of empathy among medical students. The databases PubMed, EMBASE, and PsycINFO were searched. Studies employing quantitative methodologies and published in English or Scandinavian language and examining medical students exclusively were included. Results: Thirty studies were included of which 24 had a cross-sectional and 6 a longitudinal study design. In 14 studies, significantly lower levels of empathy were reported by increase in the number of educational years. The remaining 16 studies identified both higher, mixed and unchanged levels. In 18 out of 27 studies it was reported that females had higher empathy scores than males. Only three out of nine studies found an association between empathy scores and specialty preferences. Nine out of 30 studies reported a propensity towards lower mean empathy scores in non-Western compared to Western countries. Conclusion: The results revealed equivocal findings concerning how the empathy level among medical students develops among medical students across numbers of educational years and how empathy levels are associated with gender, specialty preferences, and nationality. Future research might benefit from focusing on how students' empathy is displayed in clinical settings, e.g. in clinical encounters with patients, peers and other health professionals.

Empathy in Japanese paramedicine students: A cross‐sectional study

“…Cultural differences in measures of empathy within healthcare have been previously described in many studies, and this has been supported by a recent systematic review of empathy among medical students (Andersen, Johansen, Søndergaard, Andersen, & Assing Hvidt, 2020). The review concluded that studies of students from non-Western countries reported lower levels of empathy than studies that took place with medical students from Western countries (Andersen et al, 2020).…”

The fear of COVID-19 scale: Validation in spanish university students

“…As regards the Faculty of Social Sciences, their students are enrolled on courses in Education, Social Work, Social Education and Business Administration and Management, and although there seems to be no evident explanation for their higher levels of fear, it may be that the more social and empathetic profile of their degrees might be at the root of their higher scores. Other works have suggested the importance of empathy skills as a differentiating factor ( Andersen et al., 2020 ). However, in our case, we are unaware of what other degrees form part of this category of response, potentially being more technical degrees or ones related to other professional profiles, which might imply students have a different perspective on the pandemic situation, where empathy, bonding relationships and fear are less important.…”

Heart and Head: Profiles and Predictors of Self-Assessed Cognitive and Affective Empathy in a Sample of Medical and Health Professional Students

“…Low empathy levels could be considered negative in medical schools, since empathy may be the most powerful tool for a successful collaboration between the users and the professionals. The levels of empathy can show different trajectories and variations were found among medical students across the number of educational years, influencing specialty preferences (Andersen et al, 2020 ). Moreover, the likelihood of reporting lower empathic levels of MS and HPS due to the previous contact for psychological problems and feeling lonely could suggest a further explanation: the IRI self-assessment could have been influenced by biased cognitive processing of poor self-judgment related to depression (Dunn et al, 2009 ).…”