Evaluation of empathy levels of dentistry students in pediatric dentistry clinical practice education process.

Purpose/objectives: The objective of this study was to assess the empathy levels of dental students during their clinical practice training in pediatric dentistry and to evaluate various factors that influence changes in these empathy levels.

Methods: The study evaluated the empathy levels of a total of 350 students (70 third-year, 140 fourth-year, and 140 fifth-year dental students) who received pediatric dentistry clinical practice training and/or observation between October 2022 and December 2023. The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy-Student Version was used to assess empathy levels before and after the training. The data were subjected to statistical analysis using the Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Wilcoxon test, and Dunn Test (p < 0.05).

Results: The response rate of the participants was 92.10%. The highest empathy level was observed in third-year students, while the lowest empathy level was observed in fifth-year students. A statistically significant relationship was found between these two variables (p < 0.001). Additionally, the empathy level of female students was statistically significantly higher than that of male students (p < 0.001). Following the completion of the pediatric dentistry training, a statistically significant increase was observed in the empathy levels of the students in comparison to the baseline (p < 0.001).

Conclusion: Empathy levels in students are found to be correlated with academic year, sibling count, and gender. It is of paramount importance to enhance empathy skills through training in order to foster the development of human-oriented physicians capable of effective patient communication.