Empathy in Chinese medical students: psychometric characteristics and differences by gender and year of medical education

Abstract

Doc number: 130

Abstract

Background: In recent years in China, the tense physician-patient relationship has been an outstanding problem. Empathy is one of the fundamental factors enhancing the therapeutic effects of physician-patient relationships and is significantly associated with clinical and academic performance among students.

Methods: This cross-sectional study used the JSPE-S (The Student Version of the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy) to assess 902 medical students from 1^st year to 4^th year at China Medical University. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by Cronbach's alpha coefficient. We performed an exploratory factor analysis to evaluate the construct validity of the JSPE-S. Group comparisons of empathy scores were conducted via the t -test and one-way ANOVA. Statistic analysis was performed by SPSS 13.0.

Results: The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.83. The three factors emerging in the factor analysis of the JSPE-S are "perspective taking", "compassionate care" and "ability to stand in patients' shoes", which accounted for 48.00%. The mean empathy score was 109.60. The empathy score of medical students had significant differences between different genders (p < 0.05) and academic year level (p < 0.05).

Conclusions: This study provided support for the validity and reliability of the Chinese translated version of the JSPE-S for medical students. Early exposure to clinical training and a curriculum for professional competencies help to enhance the empathy of medical students. We suggest that the curriculum within Chinese medical schools include more teaching on empathy and communicational skills.