Empathy and Empathic Decline by Academic Year and Sex in Nursing Students

Abstract

Introduction: Empathy is an important attribute for communication between the health professional (doctors and nurses of all specialties) and the patient; it allows intersubjective connection between them and contributes to better care, greater adherence to treatment, among many other benefits. Given the complexity of empathy, educating this attribute is a task that must be assumed during undergraduate training and not during specialized training. Therefore, studies about empathy, as well as the interventions that can be derived from an adequate empathic diagnosis, must be carried out precisely at this training level.

Objective: To determine the presence of empathic decline, with a focus on the variables academic years and sex, based on the levels of empathy and its dimensions in Nursing students.

Methods: Exploratory and cross-sectional study carried out with 166 students, from a total population of 188. The Jefferson Empathy Scale was used. The possible differences in empathy and its components were studied using nonparametric tests.

Results: There were no differences in the components of empathy regarding the variable academic year; however, empathy, in general, did have differences. Empathy and its components did not differ by sex, with the exception of perspective taking, which was higher in women.

Conclusions: The levels of empathy between academic years were not different and empathic decline was not manifested. There were no differences between the sexes and only the component perspective taking was higher in women.