Empathy in Japanese paramedicine students: A cross‐sectional study

Abstract

Empathy is an important characteristic for healthcare students and professionals that may improve the quality of healthcare interactions. Empathy has predominantly been studied within medicine, but also among various allied health personnel. Within paramedicine, empathy has previously been examined internationally, but not within Japan. This study used a descriptive, cross-sectional methodology which aimed to examine self-reported empathy in Japanese paramedic students using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy, and compare results with similar international cohorts. Empathy levels in the Japanese cohort were higher among females compared to males. In addition, there was a decrease in empathy with each subsequent year of the paramedic program, and a general decrease as age increased. This contrasts with comparable Australian cohorts which demonstrate no significant change in empathy levels during the undergraduate program. Empathy levels measured in the Japanese paramedic cohort were generally lower than for Australian cohorts. The reasons for the differences are unclear at present and thus further research in this area is required to fully determine and describe the contributing factors.

Attitudes Toward People With Schizophrenia Among Undergraduate Nursing Students

“…As such, attitudes toward mental disorders may be culturally relevant. In addition, nursing students in the present study generally demonstrated greater empathy than paramedic students (Beovich & Williams, 2021) and dental students and interns (Nazir et al, 2021). Regarding personality traits, nursing students showed the greatest predisposition in agreeableness and the least in emotional stability, which was consistent with the findings of Yuan et al (2018).…”

Empathy in undergraduate medical students: a multi-center cross-sectional study in China

“…At present, empathy level has been examined among medical students from multiple countries, such as Brazil [ 9 ], Korean [ 10 ], Japan [ 11 ], Thailand [ 12 ], USA [ 13 ]. Related factors influencing empathy level of medical students also were widely studied.…”

“…Numerous studies reported higher empathy scores among female medical students than among male medical students [14,15], however, no significant difference between gender also was found [16,17]. Academic year in medical school also was a disputable factor associated with empathy [11,14,15,18], research generally revealed that medical students in the first academic year had higher empathy level [11,[19][20][21]. Also, most studies found that medical students who preferred a peopleoriented specialty had significantly higher empathy scores [9,13,20].…”