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Empathy variation of undergraduate medical students after early clinical contact: a cross-sectional study in China

OBJECTIVES: Empathy education is very important for medical students. There is little research on the influence of early clinical practice on the development of empathy and other aspects of professionalism in medical students. The aim of this study was to compare the self-reported empathy levels of...

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Autores principales: Ye, Xiong, Guo, Haiying, Xu, Zhou, Xiao, Hui
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7371130/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32690511
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035690
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author Ye, Xiong
Guo, Haiying
Xu, Zhou
Xiao, Hui
author_facet Ye, Xiong
Guo, Haiying
Xu, Zhou
Xiao, Hui
author_sort Ye, Xiong
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVES: Empathy education is very important for medical students. There is little research on the influence of early clinical practice on the development of empathy and other aspects of professionalism in medical students. The aim of this study was to compare the self-reported empathy levels of first-year and second-year undergraduate medical students before and after their early clinical contact curriculum. SETTING: The study was conducted at the Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences, Shanghai, China. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 257 undergraduate medical students participated in the study. The 154 first-year students were studying in 10 community-based teaching hospitals, and the 103 second-year students were studying in 3 university-affiliated hospitals. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Primary measures: the Jefferson Scale of Empathy—Student version (JSE-S) was compared between students of different sexes and in different academic years before their early clinical contact course. Secondary measures: comparisons were made after they finished the curriculum 3 weeks later. RESULTS: A total of 219 of 257 students responded (85.21% response rate), and 214 answers could be analysed (135 first-year and 79 second-year students; 120 female and 94 male individuals). No significant differences in the empathy scores before early clinical contact were observed between students of different sexes and in different academic years. After early clinical contact, the mean JSE-S score of the participants was significantly higher than the mean score at the beginning of the curriculum. CONCLUSIONS: Empathy-focused training during early clinical contact can improve the empathetic capacity of undergraduate medical students. Fostering empathetic attitudes among undergraduate medical students is necessary for the early stage of their medical education. Further research is needed on the long-term effects of empathy-focused education in entry-level medical students.
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spelling pubmed-73711302020-07-22 Empathy variation of undergraduate medical students after early clinical contact: a cross-sectional study in China Ye, Xiong Guo, Haiying Xu, Zhou Xiao, Hui BMJ Open Medical Education and Training OBJECTIVES: Empathy education is very important for medical students. There is little research on the influence of early clinical practice on the development of empathy and other aspects of professionalism in medical students. The aim of this study was to compare the self-reported empathy levels of first-year and second-year undergraduate medical students before and after their early clinical contact curriculum. SETTING: The study was conducted at the Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences, Shanghai, China. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 257 undergraduate medical students participated in the study. The 154 first-year students were studying in 10 community-based teaching hospitals, and the 103 second-year students were studying in 3 university-affiliated hospitals. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Primary measures: the Jefferson Scale of Empathy—Student version (JSE-S) was compared between students of different sexes and in different academic years before their early clinical contact course. Secondary measures: comparisons were made after they finished the curriculum 3 weeks later. RESULTS: A total of 219 of 257 students responded (85.21% response rate), and 214 answers could be analysed (135 first-year and 79 second-year students; 120 female and 94 male individuals). No significant differences in the empathy scores before early clinical contact were observed between students of different sexes and in different academic years. After early clinical contact, the mean JSE-S score of the participants was significantly higher than the mean score at the beginning of the curriculum. CONCLUSIONS: Empathy-focused training during early clinical contact can improve the empathetic capacity of undergraduate medical students. Fostering empathetic attitudes among undergraduate medical students is necessary for the early stage of their medical education. Further research is needed on the long-term effects of empathy-focused education in entry-level medical students. BMJ Publishing Group 2020-07-19 /pmc/articles/PMC7371130/ /pubmed/32690511 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035690 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
spellingShingle Medical Education and Training
Ye, Xiong
Guo, Haiying
Xu, Zhou
Xiao, Hui
Empathy variation of undergraduate medical students after early clinical contact: a cross-sectional study in China
title Empathy variation of undergraduate medical students after early clinical contact: a cross-sectional study in China
title_full Empathy variation of undergraduate medical students after early clinical contact: a cross-sectional study in China
title_fullStr Empathy variation of undergraduate medical students after early clinical contact: a cross-sectional study in China
title_full_unstemmed Empathy variation of undergraduate medical students after early clinical contact: a cross-sectional study in China
title_short Empathy variation of undergraduate medical students after early clinical contact: a cross-sectional study in China
title_sort empathy variation of undergraduate medical students after early clinical contact: a cross-sectional study in china
topic Medical Education and Training
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7371130/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32690511
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035690
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