Effects of an Educational Film About Body Donors on Students' Empathy and Anxiety Levels in Gross Anatomy

Abstract

While most German anatomy institutes provide only limited information about body donors and their lives, students have expressed a desire to learn more about these individuals, especially about their motivations to donate their bodies for the sake of medical education. In order to gratify this wish, as well as to further humanize body donors, an educational film was compiled, and a study designed to capture the film's effects on medical students. This is the first study using standardized, validated psychological tools to evaluate the impact of an educational film about body donors on students’ empathy and psychological stress levels. The study followed a longitudinal, controlled, and cluster randomized design, including 77 (48 females/29 males) participants who watched the video either before, midway, or after the dissection course. Questionnaires were completed at four points in time applying the Jefferson Scale for Empathy (JSPE‐S) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) to measure empathy. Psychological stress levels were recorded by the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). Overall, students recommended the film to be shown to all students (median 6.0; maximum on the six‐point Likert scale). Viewing the film revealed no significant changes between study groups or over time in JSPE‐S sum scores. All groups demonstrated a significant reduction of BSI values before the dissection course actually started and increased values during the course, but both developments appeared not to be associated with the intervention. Overall, the educational film did not correlate with any negative effects on students’ empathy and psychological stress levels, and it was strongly approved of by students, as it provided more humanizing personal information about body donors without violating their anonymity.

Physician Associate Students' Experience of Anatomy Dissection

“…The characteristic smell due to the embalming chemicals used in many anatomy rooms has also been previously described (Dinsmore et al, 2001; Henry et al, 2002; Arráez‐Aybar et al, 2014; Kissler et al, 2016; Fortunato et al, 2018). As with participants in the current study, some students may be prepared for this smell (Iaconisi et al, 2019) while others may not expect the smell to be so intense (Lempp, 2005; Bamber et al, 2014; Romo Barrientos et al, 2019). Some participants in this study commented on the nausea associated with this smell; nausea was similarly reported as one of the physical symptoms suffered by medical students in an earlier study in this same institution (Mc Garvey et al, 2001).…”

“…The lack of preparation for the dissection room has been linked with elevated anxiety levels (Romo Barrientos et al, 2019) while others have reported that a previous experience of a dead body had no impact on attitudes to dissection (Quince et al, 2011). The introduction of an educational film about body donors was implemented in one institution, providing humanizing personal information about donors without violating their anonymity (Iaconisi et al, 2019). While this intervention did not appear to affect standardized empathy or psychological stress scores, it was approved of by the student body, who recommended that the film be shown to all students.…”

Longitudinal SARS-CoV-2 infection study in a German medical school

“…It is possible that behavior during the semester break before the winter term differed from that during the semester with regard to disciplined adherence to infection prevention and control measures. The gross anatomy course in particular is considered to be very learning intensive 8,23 . Our impression was that the students felt that it depended on their behavior, individually and on the entire cohort, whether the semester could be carried out as planned.…”

Anatomy, Education, and Ethics in a Changing World

“…There are also results from a qualitative study of emotion, ethics, and humanism in gross anatomy (Goss et al, 2019), and a first qualitative exploration of the use of unclaimed bodies and the impressions of the students that work with them (Caplan and DeCamp, 2019). The value of an educational intervention with a film about body donors (Iaconisi et al, 2019) and transformation and closure for donor families after meeting with students is explored (Halliday et al, 2019), while our understanding of donor populations is also enhanced through an exploration of registered Turkish body donors (Gürses et al, 2019) that provides a fascinating insight into how religion and culture influence body donation practice. An entirely novel set of ethical questions surrounding body donors is revealed in considering anatomical bodies from persons availing themselves of medical assistance in dying, or active euthanasia, in Canada (Wainman and Cornwall, 2019).…”