Empathy in health care providers--validation study of the Polish version of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy.

PURPOSE: Empathy as a crucial component of the interpersonal relationship needs to be measured, especially in helping professions. We designed this study to adapt both "Student" ("S") Version and "Health Professionals" ("HP") Version of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) to Polish population. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Three instruments were administered to 405 respondents: Polish version of the JSE, Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) measuring four aspects of empathy (i.e. empathic concern, fantasy, personal distress and perspective taking), Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS). JSE was applied to physicians, nurses and medical, nursing and midwives students in order to calculate reliability coefficient and other psychometric data. In order to assess validity of the scale, the empathy results were correlated with those obtained by respondents on IRI and EIS. RESULTS: Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient for "S" verSION WAS 0.73, for "HP" version - 0.79, whereas for the entire sample was 0.71. Neither significant differences on empathy scores were found between genders nor among five groups of respondents on JSE. Physicians obtained the highest mean of empathy score (M = 113.06), while the lowest was observed in nurses (M = 110.12). Empathy results on JSE correlated significantly with "empathic concern" (r = 0.25, p < 0.01) and with "perspective taking" (r = 0.26, p < 0.01). Also significant correlation was found between empathy and emotional intelligence. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the lower (but acceptable) reliability coefficient of the Polish JSE in comparison with the original version, the scale proved to be very useful instrument evaluating empathy in health care professionals and students. Further research is needed to identify factors that contribute to changes in psychometric data of the scale.

[Studies on empathy in doctors and medical students]. / Badania nad empatia lekarzy i studentów medycyny.

Empathy is an expected attribute improving doctor-patient relationship. It also helps to understand psychological problems of patients. This paper describes a research study on empathy in physicians of different specializations. The study population included paediatricians, psychiatrists, oncologists, gynaecologists, internists, residents of family medicine and final-year-medical students. In order to evaluate empathic abilities in doctors and students two questionnaires were applied. Both estimate the level of emotional and cognitive empathy. Results indicated the highest empathic abilities in future family physicians, especially in its emotional aspect. Comparing them to internists and gynaecologists, the difference is of statistical significance. The highest level of cognitive empathy characterizes in order: paediatricians, psychiatrists and family doctors. Comparing to other specializations, internal medicine doctors and gynaecologists proved to be physicians of the lowest cognitive empathy.

[Level and dynamics of empathy in I and VI year students at the Medical Academy of Medicine in Gdansk]. / Poziom i dynamika empatii u studentów I i VI roku Wydzialu Lekarskiego Akademii Medycznej w Gdansku.

Empathy is and important element in achieving didactic goals in the field of communication skills. It is a valuable feature particularly in the family doctor practice. 353 students (210 female and 143 male) from the first and last year of medical school were survived by using the psychological questionnaire-"Emotional Empathy Scale" by A. Mehrabian and N. Epstein, evaluating emotional aspects of empathy. The findings suggest that the level of empathy is higher among women than among men from the first year. The difference is statistically significant. During six years of medical education there is a significant decrease of empathy skill in women, specially in its emotional aspect. These students represent the lack of willingness in contact with people having problems. According to these findings we decided to continue our research to check the hypothesis concerning reasons of decreasing level of empathy in medical students.