Clinical Empathy In Medical Students As Measured Through Jefferson Scale Of Empathy – Student Version

BACKGROUND: Clinical empathy is known to increase patients’ sense of satisfaction, thereby facilitating their compliance. Empathetic doctors are therefore found to make better clinical decisions. Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) has seen particularly widespread use among medical students, as a tailored version of the JSE (the JSE-S) was developed specifically to gauge clinical empathy in medical students. METHODS: A cross-sectional study to assess the empathy of undergraduate Medical students at the Kakatiya Medical College, Warangal, Telangana, India, was conducted using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy–Student Version. Demographic data were obtained using a pretested, semi-open-ended questionnaire. RESULTS: Of the 100 students, 78 participated in the survey (78%). The mean empathy score was 94.3 (of a maximum of 140), with a standard deviation of 13.34. The empathy scores decreased from the first to the third semester, plateaued at the fifth semester, and rose. Again in the seventh semester. Empathy was found to be significantly associated with the gender of the participant, with females having higher scores (P<0.001). CONCLUSION: The study found significant gender differences in empathy among the participants. The empathy scores tended to decline initially and then rebound over time. The mean empathy levels found in this study are lower than those reported in most similar studies around the world; therefore, further studies are needed to analyze and address the underlying factors associated with this discrepancy.