[Teaching and assessing empathy in health studies: the path of psychosocial skills].

Abstract

How can life skills offer a relevant framework for integrating empathy into the pedagogical and evaluative processes of health studies? Life skills are defined by the World Health Organization and Santé publique France as a coherent and interrelated set of psychological capabilities. They enable a person to maintain a state of psychological well-being and adopt appropriate, positive behaviors. Drawing on the evaluation systems already in place in health studies, we propose ways of ensuring that empathy is a permanent feature of both competency frameworks and evaluation methods throughout health curricula.