{"title":"Comparison of empathy profiles of medical students at the start and in the advanced clinical phase of their training.","authors":"Susanne Schrötter, Peter Kropp, Britta Müller","doi":"10.3205/zma001662","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>The National Competence Based Catalogue of Learning Objectives for Undergraduate Medical Education (NKLM) cites empathy as a basic competence for medical doctors. Based on a multidimensional concept of clinical empathy, empathy profiles of medical students at the start of their training and in the 9<sup>th</sup> semester were identified and compared in order to draw conclusions for the conception of effective course offers.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>Using the Saarbrücker Personality Questionnaire on Empathy (SPF-IRI), self-rated empathy was recorded in a cross-sectional study of medical students (1<sup>st</sup> semester: N=192/9<sup>th</sup> semester: N=221). Two Stage Clustering was performed for data analysis.</p><p><strong>Result: </strong>Three empathy profiles which could be meaningfully delineated by content were identified: 1. reflected, functional empathy, 2. unreflected, burdensome empathy and 3. distancing and avoidance. Students in the 9<sup>th</sup> semester mostly tended toward unreflected, burdensome empathy. Only one-third appeared capable of feeling empathy with patients while at the same time adequately regulating their own emotions and thus protecting themselves from emotional overload.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>An adequately reflected and functional empathy among medical students can neither be assumed at the start of their training, nor do existing course offers appear to provide sufficient training for this. Empathy should thus be implemented as a competence which needs to be promoted over the entire course of study. Emotion regulation plays a key role.</p>","PeriodicalId":45850,"journal":{"name":"GMS Journal for Medical Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10946216/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"GMS Journal for Medical Education","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3205/zma001662","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: The National Competence Based Catalogue of Learning Objectives for Undergraduate Medical Education (NKLM) cites empathy as a basic competence for medical doctors. Based on a multidimensional concept of clinical empathy, empathy profiles of medical students at the start of their training and in the 9th semester were identified and compared in order to draw conclusions for the conception of effective course offers.
Method: Using the Saarbrücker Personality Questionnaire on Empathy (SPF-IRI), self-rated empathy was recorded in a cross-sectional study of medical students (1st semester: N=192/9th semester: N=221). Two Stage Clustering was performed for data analysis.
Result: Three empathy profiles which could be meaningfully delineated by content were identified: 1. reflected, functional empathy, 2. unreflected, burdensome empathy and 3. distancing and avoidance. Students in the 9th semester mostly tended toward unreflected, burdensome empathy. Only one-third appeared capable of feeling empathy with patients while at the same time adequately regulating their own emotions and thus protecting themselves from emotional overload.
Conclusion: An adequately reflected and functional empathy among medical students can neither be assumed at the start of their training, nor do existing course offers appear to provide sufficient training for this. Empathy should thus be implemented as a competence which needs to be promoted over the entire course of study. Emotion regulation plays a key role.
期刊介绍:
GMS Journal for Medical Education (GMS J Med Educ) – formerly GMS Zeitschrift für Medizinische Ausbildung – publishes scientific articles on all aspects of undergraduate and graduate education in medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, pharmacy and other health professions. Research and review articles, project reports, short communications as well as discussion papers and comments may be submitted. There is a special focus on empirical studies which are methodologically sound and lead to results that are relevant beyond the respective institution, profession or country. Please feel free to submit qualitative as well as quantitative studies. We especially welcome submissions by students. It is the mission of GMS Journal for Medical Education to contribute to furthering scientific knowledge in the German-speaking countries as well as internationally and thus to foster the improvement of teaching and learning and to build an evidence base for undergraduate and graduate education. To this end, the journal has set up an editorial board with international experts. All manuscripts submitted are subjected to a clearly structured peer review process. All articles are published bilingually in English and German and are available with unrestricted open access. Thus, GMS Journal for Medical Education is available to a broad international readership. GMS Journal for Medical Education is published as an unrestricted open access journal with at least four issues per year. In addition, special issues on current topics in medical education research are also published. Until 2015 the journal was published under its German name GMS Zeitschrift für Medizinische Ausbildung. By changing its name to GMS Journal for Medical Education, we wish to underline our international mission.