Factors associated with the level of empathy towards the patient in medical students, Peru, 2018

Abstract

Introduction: Empathy is the adequate understanding towards the patient; it is considered the central axis of the doctor-patient relationship and is a vital component for high-quality health care.Objective: To determine the levels of empathy towards the patient and their association with family functionality, stress, academic performance and sociodemographic and academic factors of medical students.Material and Methods: An observational, descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted. The study population included 130 medical students (between 3rd-year and 6-th year) who fulfilled the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The independent variables were family functionality, stress and academic performance. A questionnaire and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy Version S were applied. For the analysis, the Shapiro-Wilk test was used for testing the assumption of normality, the Student t Test and Anova test were used to establish the relationship between variables. Statistical significance of p <0.05 was considered.Results: The average global empathy was 106.08 ± 18.29 points. Statistically significant differences were found between global empathy and sex (p = 0.03), year of studies (p = 0.00), and family functionality (p = 0.04).Conclusions: The level of family functioning is associated with empathy. Moreover, it was also found that women were more empathic than men and higher academic years were associated with a lower level of empathy towards the patient.

Keywords

• empatía
• relaciones médico-paciente, empatía médica funcionamiento familiar.