Levels of Empathy in Undergraduate Health-Care-Professions Students

Abstract

Empathy is a central component in effective healthcare provider-patient relationships, yet evidence exists that healthcare professions students lack empathy. A cross-sectional survey was completed to identify whether a relationship exists between empathy levels in baccalaureate nursing, psychology, pre-medical, pre-dental, pre-physical therapy, and pre-occupational therapy majors who have or have not identifi ed a projected specialty within their profession upon entry into practice, and compare these fi ndings. A 28-item questionnaire was completed by a convenience sample of202 students with declared majors in the healthcare professions of interest. There was no signifi cant difference in empathy levels between students of all majors who had or who had not indicated a proj ected specialty, validating findings in previous research (Ward et aI., 2009). Empathy levels in nursing students with a proj ected specialty were signifi cantly higher than those of students in all other majors with proj ected specialties. Gender and age signifi cantly infl uenced empathy levels between students of all maj ors with a proj ected specialty. These findings expand the current understanding of empathy and what may infl uence empathy levels in students planning to enter healthcare. Suggestions fo r future research are described.EMPATHY IN HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONS STUDENTS 3 professionals view empathy as a vital attribute that needs to be developed in students entering the healthcare professions (Wilson, Prescott, & Becket, 2012).A growing concern has been noted regarding the decline of empathy levels in healthcare professions students as they progress through their education, which is thought to be possibly due to a lack of positive role models in the clinical setting, a high volume of material to learn, technological, diagnostic, and therapeutic approaches to healthcare, thus leading students to lose the human empathetic perspective in the patient-provider relationship. To address the concern of decreasing levels of empathy in healthcare professions students, these authors suggest that evidenced-based healthcare professions programs must be designed to encourage students to relate to their patients and fam ilies as human beings with lives and relationships as well as the need fo r rigorous evaluation of these programs to ensure that the desired outcomes, increased levels of empathy, are being achieved (Ozcan et a!., 2012).Review of the Literature A search of the Medline, Social Sciences Citation Index, ClNAHL, OAlster, and ERIC databases was conducted using the tern1S "empathy", "tool", "scale", "healthcare", "measurement", "nursing", and "students", individually and in combination. The search yielded sources describing six tools that have been developed and used to measure empathy. EMPATHY IN HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONS STUDENTS 7 Empathy Measurement ToolsSix tools were identifi ed in the literature to measure empathy and provide operational definitions of the concept: the Empathy Construct Rating Scale (ECRS), Interpersonal Rea...