Assessment of Empathy Levels among Medical Students in a Nigerian University

Abstract

Background: Empathy plays a fundamental role in a good patient-doctor relationship and has been demonstrated to significantly improve patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes. Hence, this study assessed the empathy levels of undergraduate clinical medical students at the University of Jos, Nigeria. Method: A cross-sectional study was carried out between January and March 2020 among 546 clinical students in the 4th to 6th years of training. A self-administered Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Student version questionnaire was used to collect data which were analyzed with SPSS version 23.0. At a 95% confidence interval, a p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. Result: More than half of the participants were male (337, 67.1%). The mean empathy score was 110.6 ± 17.7. Females (115.1 ± 14.9) had a significantly higher mean empathy score (P= 0.0001) than males (107.8 ± 18.8). The 22-24years age group had a significantly higher empathy score than those aged 25-27 years (P < 0.001). There was a significant difference (P = 0.049) in empathy levels between participants in the 4th and 5th years of training. Students who were undecided about their specialty preferences had a higher mean empathy score (111.9 ± 15.0) than those who preferred medicine (111.5 ± 16.9) or surgery (109.0 ±19.8) related specialties respectively. Conclusion: This study has demonstrated a relatively high mean empathy score influenced by both sex and age. Advancing level of training and continued interaction with patients did not seem to have much effect on empathy. Hence, empathy and patient-centered care should be included in the curriculum of undergraduate medical training.