Compassion and extracurricular activities of Portuguese Health Sciences students in Portugal

Abstract

Background Compassion, one of the items of empathy, is crucial in health care professions. So, the evaluation of the levels of compassion of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences Master Degrees’ (M.D.) students of the public Colleges in Portugal according to the type of Master Degree and the participation in extracurricular activities (E.A.) was a task to be performed. Methods Cross-sectional study in 2020, applying an on-line questionnaire including the “Compassion” items of the Jefferson Medical Empathy Scale – Students’ version and questions about the participation in E.A. Results A sample of 901 students was studied. Its distribution by participation in E.A. did not differ significantly between M.D. (p = 0,854), most of the students participating in E.A. Using quartile distribution of compassion, the distribution of compassion levels was different among the three I.M. (p < 0.001), between Colleges (p < 0.001), and between curricular years (p < 0.001), with not different between genders (p = 0.036). For 56.4%, 74,6% and 69,5% of the respondents there was “medium-low” and “low” compassion for I.M. in Medicine, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Dentistry. These levels were also more prevalent among students in the 1st and 5th years. Levels of compassion were not different with the participation (p = 0,865), type (p = 0,177) and frequency of E.A. (p = 0,109). Conclusions For their importance in future health care professionals, compassion and their differences found among the M.Ds. of this area deserve future studies. Levels of compassion showed differences between the M.D. studied and academic years of frequency. There was no relationship between the participation, type, and frequency of E.A. and the students’ levels of compassion. The distribution of the level of compassion did not vary significantly with participation in E.A. (p = 0.865), with the type of E.A. (p = 0.177), with the frequency of E.A. (p = 0.109) or with the answer to the question “The practice of E.A. can make a person more compassionate?” (p = 0.503).

Impacto de actividades extracurriculares en la autorrealización de estudiantes de medicina: una revisión sistemática

“…El estudio de Donohoe et al, menciona que las AE fueron rankeadas con un bajo puntaje por los estudiantes en términos de efectividad e importancia si fuesen incluídas en un programa de automanejo (25) En la misma línea, el estudio de Huang et al (26) informa que una fracción menor de estudiantes de medicina considera a las AE de investigación científica carentes de sentido o una pérdida de tiempo y esfuerzo. El estudio de Santiago et al, determina la ausencia de evidencia en cuanto a una relación entre la participación, el tipo y la frecuencia de las actividades extracurriculares y los niveles de compasión de los estudiantes de medicina (27).…”