Medical students’ individual and social empathy: A follow-up study

Abstract

Background: The Social Empathy Index (SEI) measures self-reported empathy for individuals and for vulnerable groups. In a previous study, we published first-year medical students’ SEI scores before and after completing a course on the social determinants of health. We re-administered the SEI to the original student cohort entering their 4th year.

Methods: Survey data were analyzed for individual and social empathy components using repeated measures ANOVA. Associations of demographic data and the latest scores were analyzed using either two sample t-test or ANOVA.

Results: Of 130 4th-year eligible medical students, 76 (58%) completed all three surveys. The mean “Affective Mentalizing” score increased by 0.15 points from the first to fourth year of medical school, p < 0.05. A concomitant decline was observed in “Emotional Regulation” decreasing 0.68 points, p < 0.001. “Contextual Understanding of Systemic Barriers” (CU) increased in mean score by 0.26 points, p = 0.006.

Discussion: Our findings support promoting interventions to combat a decline of emotional regulation in their clinical years. The consistent increase in CU at each follow-up testing point may indicate a need to focus on students’ sense of self-efficacy in addressing the social determinants of health. Social empathy scores might predict which students are likely to choose primary care specialties.

Acknowledgements

Ethical approval: Ethical approval was granted for socio-behavioral research by the Georgetown University Institutional Review Board July 2014 ID 2014-0639.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Glossary

Social empathy: The ability to understand people by perceiving or experiencing their life situations and as a result gain insight into structural inequalities and disparities (Segal et al. 2012).

Additional information

Funding

We thank the Dean’s Office at Georgetown University School of Medicine for its support from a medical education curriculum development/research grant.

Notes on contributors

Caroline Wellbery

Caroline Wellbery, MD, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC, and Associate Deputy Editor of American Family Physician.

Tina Barjasteh

Tina Barjasteh, MD is a Family Medicine resident, Department of Family Medicine, Kaiser Permanente Woodland Hills, Woodland Hills, CA.

Valeriy Korostyshevskiy

Valeriy Korostyshevskiy, PhD is a Faculty Biostatistician in the Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, and Biomathematics at Georgetown University Medical Center.