Cultural adaptation and psychometric properties of the Jefferson empathy scale health professions students' version in SpanishOccupational therapy students

Evaluating empathy level amongst the dental students using jefferson scale of physician empathy- health professional students

BACKGROUND

Empathy is described as one's ability to perceive and apprehend another person's feelings, situation, emotions, and problems as their own. Empathetic behavior increases patients' satisfaction, reduces discomfort, and helps with patient's satisfaction.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Jefferson Empathy Scale and compare the measure of invariance within genders and amongst the public and private sector dental students.

METHOD

This cross-sectional study utilized JSE-HPS version for research purpose. An exploratory factor analysis was performed to detect underlying factors. Reliability of the study tool was evaluated using Cronbach alpha test. Mann Whitney U test was used to compare the differences in scores between genders and among public and private university students while Student's t analysis compared the scores according to different domains. The level of significance was ≤ 0.05.

RESULTS

Females demonstrated higher empathy levels (88.52 ± 14.19) along with private institute students (88.46 ± 13.98). Perspective taking and compassionate care domain was also scored highest by the females (31.73 ± 6.49 & 29.31 ± 6.22) and among second year students (33.30 ± 7.11 & 30.50 ± 7.16). PCA analysis extracted 4 factors namely (i) Health-care-provider's sense of humor contributed to improved outcome (ii) Health-care provider's understanding of patients' feelings and of their families influences treatment outcomes (iii) Understanding body language is as important as verbal communication and (iv) Patients feel better when their feelings are understood, which accounted for the 59.51% of the total variance.

CONCLUSION

The findings revealed that students from private institute and females demonstrated higher empathy score. Moreover, the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) was found to be a reliable and validated tool for assessment of empathy in our sample population.

Empathy levels in physiotherapy students: a four-year longitudinal study

BACKGROUND

Empathy is a key value in health-related occupations such as physiotherapy.

PURPOSE

This longitudinal study aimed to determine the empathy levels of students in a four-year bachelor of physiotherapy program.

METHODS

A total of 120 physiotherapy students at a non-governmental university in Istanbul participated in the study between 2016 and 2019. The Turkish adaptation of the student version of the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy was used. Empathy scores were compared according to year of study and gender.

RESULTS

Most participants were women (n = 101, 84.2%). Empathy scores differed by years of study (p < .001) being highest in the first year and lowest in the fourth year. There was no difference in empathy scores between women and men (p = .26).

CONCLUSION

This is the first longitudinal study to contribute data on empathy levels in Turkish physiotherapy students. The decline in empathy seen in fourth-year physiotherapy students is associated more with the academic program and clinical practice than with any other factor. Further studies are warranted to explore why there are variations in empathy levels in physiotherapy students during their education. Ensuring students develop awareness and skills related to empathy during their undergraduate studies could result in a higher quality of care early in their professional practice.

Empathy in occupational therapy students: a cross-sectional study at a Spanish university

INTRODUCTION

Empathy is an important interpersonal skill and a fundamental component in the professional-patient relationship, being the basis for implementing person-centred practice. In several studies, a decrease in empathy levels throughout training in medicine, nursing or dentistry, among others, has been shown. There are few studies on the occupational therapy branch of healthcare. The aim was to determine the degree of empathy perceived by students of occupational therapy at a Spanish university, as well as to analyse the differences between empathy levels according to the different degree courses and gender.

METHODS

A descriptive cross-sectional study was designed with a sample of 221 occupational therapy students from a Spanish university. The Davis Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Profession Student's Spanish version (JSPE-HPS-S) were used as outcome measures.

RESULTS

According to the results found, high level of empathy was found on all dimension of the IRI (69.84 (9.80)) and the JSPE-HPS-S (122 (94-140)). Although high levels of empathy among occupational therapy students are observed in all degree courses, no significant differences were found between them. Statistically significant differences and a moderate effect size (r) were found between the variables according to the gender of the participants, with females showing greater empathy in the overall scores of the IRI as well as in the JSPE-HPS-S (p=0.002, r=0.212; p=0.001, r=0.327, respectively).

CONCLUSIONS

Empathy is an essential competence for the development of quality occupational therapy practice. According to the results and although occupational therapy students showed high levels of empathy, it is important to pay attention to the evolution of empathy and to provide students with learning experiences that prevent its possible decline.