Effect of transference for pain on prosocial tendency in medical students: the moderating role of attentional bias / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the relationship between medical students' pain empathy response(pain emapthy) and prosocial tendency, and the moderating effect of attentional bias.Methods:In April 2022, 108 medical students were evaluated by the general characteristics survey questionnaire, pain empathy scale (EPS), and prosocial tendencies measure (PTM). The E-Prime dot probe task paradigm experiment procedure was used to evaluate the attentional bias of all participants. SPSS 24.0 was used for descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, stratified regression analysis, and repeated measure ANOVA. PROCESS 3.4.1 was used for moderating effect analysis.Results:(1)The pain transference score of female medical students was significantly lower than that of male(3.46±0.67, 3.95±0.51)( t=3.54, P<0.05). Medical students with chronic pain had significantly lower scores than those without chronic pain(3.28±0.84, 3.66±0.60)( t=-2.35, P<0.05). There was significant difference in prosocial tendency among medical students of different majors( χ2=6.62, P<0.05). (2)There was positive correlation( r=0.39, P<0.001) between their transference for pain(3.59±0.66) and prosocial tendency(3.60±0.50) in medical students. (3)Transference for pain could significantly positively predict prosocial tendency in medical students ( B=0.26, P<0.001). The attention bias of medical students to sadness in pain situation (d pain sadness) played a moderating role between transference for pain and prosocial tendency( B=0.01, P<0.05). Conclusion:The level of medical students’ transference for pain can significantly predict their prosocial tendencies, and improving medical students’ attention to sadness in pain situations is beneficial to exert the effect of transference for pain on prosocial behaviors.