Empathy in Undergraduate Medical Students of Bangladesh: Psychometric Analysis and Differences by Gender, Academic Year, and Specialty Preferences

Abstract

Empathy is considered to be associated with better patient compliance, satisfaction, and clinical outcomes. The aim of the study is to measure and examine empathy among a sample of undergraduate medical students of Bangladesh. It was a cross-sectional study and all the medical students of first through fifth year enrolled at Chattagram Maa-O-Shishu Hospital Medical College during the study period of 2014 were surveyed. Participants anonymously completed the Jefferson Scale of Empathy Medical Student version translated into Bengali language, a valid and reliable 20-item self-administered questionnaire. Principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation and Cronbach's alpha coefficient were calculated to check validity and reliability of the scale. ANOVA was used to examine the differences in empathy between gender, academic years, and specialty preferences. The mean empathy score was 110.41 ± 13.59. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.88. There were significant associations between gender and empathy scores. The level of empathy in medical students gradually increases after clinical training in medical college. A nonsignificant difference was found between empathy scores and specialty preferences. It is suggested that the medical curriculum in Bangladesh should include more extensive program to promote empathy and other humanistic values among the medical students.

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

“…As they progress in their study, they develop their study skills and exposure to different type of patients and their empathy level with them also grow. In accordance to our study, medical students in China, Korean, Kuwait and Bangladeshi [5,6,8,10] having increased level of empathy in clinical year than in basic years. This was in disagreement with what was reported about American and Iranian medical students who having increase level of empathy in basics year comparing to the clinical years.…”

“…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.…”

The relationship between subjective well-being and empathy among Turkish medical students

“…Exploratory factor analytic studies of the scale have often resulted in three factors: "perspective-taking", "compassionate care" and "standing (walking) in patient's shoes" (Hojat et al 2009a;Hojat & LaNoue 2014). The three factors have also been shown in studies with the translated versions of the scale (Roh et al 2010;Paro et al 2012;Wen et al 2013;Khademalhosseini et al 2014;Leombruni et al 2014;Mostafa et al 2014). The first factor of the scale is the "perspective taking" with a score range of 10-70 and items 2, 4,5,9,10,13,15,16,17 and 20.…”

Empathy with Patients Compared between First and Final Year Nursing Students

“…In a study conducted by Dehning et al in Bangladesh with the aim to assess level of empathy between the first-and the finalyear students, no significant difference was observed in empathy scores of these students [19]. In a study conducted by Mostafa et al in Bangladesh with the aim to assess level of empathy among students of medicine, the first-year students were found to have greater empathy compared to the final-year students [20], which may have been due to the difference in study groups, where in students with less training in communication and empathy with patients, or with no opportunity for applying their knowledge in clinical setting, score of these items cannot be expected to change in the course of their education. On the other hand, perhaps such results are due to the greater emphasis on students' academic knowledge and technical skills in the final year; even if students have received training on communication with patients during their education, they try to perform their technical skills in clinical settings, and ignore communication skills.…”