Stability of empathy among undergraduate medical students: A longitudinal study at one UK medical school

dc.creator	Benson John A
dc.creator	Wood Diana F
dc.creator	Parker Richard A
dc.creator	Quince Thelma A
dc.date	2011-10-01T00:00:00Z
dc.date.accessioned	2015-07-20T22:16:09Z
dc.date.available	2015-07-20T22:16:09Z
dc.identifier	10.1186/1472-6920-11-90
dc.identifier	1472-6920
dc.identifier	https://doaj.org/article/c7fd8ede1f3049fbb86740e204f9bcaf
dc.identifier.uri	http://evidence.thinkportal.org/handle/123456789/18245
dc.description	<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Empathy is important to patient care. The prevailing view is that empathy declines during university medical education. The significance of that decline has been debated.</p> <p>This paper reports the findings in respect of two questions relating to university medical education:</p> <p indent="1">1. Do men and women medical students differ in empathy?</p> <p indent="1">2. Does empathy change amongst men and women over time?</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The medical course at the University of Cambridge comprises two components: Core Science (Years 1-3) and Clinical (Years 4-6). Data were obtained from repeated questionnaire surveys of medical students from each component over a period of four years: 2007-2010. Participation in the study was voluntary.</p> <p>Empathy was measured using two subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index: IRI-EC (affective empathy) and IRI-PT (cognitive empathy). We analysed data separately for men and women from the Core Science and Clinical components. We undertook missing value analyses using logistic regression separately, for each measure of empathy, to examine non-response bias. We used Student's t-tests to examine gender differences and linear mixed effects regression analyses to examine changes over time. To assess the influence of outliers, we repeated the linear mixed effects regression analyses having excluded them.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Women displayed statistically significant higher mean scores than men for affective empathy in all 6 years of medical training and for cognitive empathy in 4 out of 6 years - Years 1 and 2 (Core Science component) and Years 4 and 5 (Clinical component).</p> <p>Amongst men, affective empathy declined slightly during both Core Science and Clinical components. Although statistically significant, both of these changes were extremely small. Cognitive empathy was unchanged during either component. Amongst women, neither affective empathy nor cognitive empathy changed during either component of the course.</p> <p>Analysis following removal of outliers showed a statistically significant slight increase in men's cognitive empathy during the Core Science component and slight decline in women's affective empathy during the Clinical component. Again, although statistically significant, these changes were extremely small and do not influence the study's overall conclusions.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Amongst medical students at the University of Cambridge, women are more empathetic than men (a generally observed phenomenon). Men's affective empathy declined slightly across the course overall, whilst women's affective empathy showed no change. Neither men nor women showed any change in cognitive empathy during the course. Although statistically significant, the size of such changes as occurred makes their practical significance questionable. Neither men nor women appear to become meaningfully less empathetic during their medical education at the University of Cambridge.</p>
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	BioMed Central
dc.relation	http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/11/90
dc.relation	https://doaj.org/toc/1472-6920
dc.rights	CC BY
dc.source	BMC Medical Education, Vol 11, Iss 1, p 90 (2011)
dc.subject	Medicine (General)
dc.subject	R5-920
dc.subject	Medicine
dc.subject	R
dc.subject	DOAJ:Medicine (General)
dc.subject	DOAJ:Health Sciences
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Medicine (General)
dc.subject	R5-920
dc.subject	Medicine
dc.subject	R
dc.subject	DOAJ:Medicine (General)
dc.subject	DOAJ:Health Sciences
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Medicine (General)
dc.subject	R5-920
dc.subject	Medicine
dc.subject	R
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Medicine (General)
dc.subject	R5-920
dc.subject	Medicine
dc.subject	R
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Medicine (General)
dc.subject	R5-920
dc.subject	Medicine
dc.subject	R
dc.subject	Special aspects of education
dc.subject	LC8-6691
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.title	Stability of empathy among undergraduate medical students: A longitudinal study at one UK medical school
dc.type	article