Tariq Nabia, Rasheed Tariq, Tavakol Mohsen
1 Shifa College of Medicine Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan.
2 Social Security Hospital Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Pakistan.
J Prim Care Community Health. 2017 Oct;8(4):294-299. doi: 10.1177/2150131917716233. Epub 2017 Jun 23.
To examine the empathy level of undergraduate medical students in Pakistan. Three hypotheses are developed based on the literature review. (1) Female medical students have a higher level of empathy than do male students. (2) Empathy scores vary during the medical school years in Pakistani students. (3) Medical students interested in people-oriented specialties would score higher than the students interested in technology-oriented specialties.
This is a quantitative inquiry approach using a cross-sectional design of 1453 students from 8 Pakistani medical schools, both private and state. The sample consists of 41.1% (n = 597) male students and 58.9% (n = 856) female students. Empirical data are collected using the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE), a well-validated self-administered questionnaire.
The mean empathy score among students is 4.77 with a standard deviation of 0.72. The results show that there is no statistically significant association between the empathy scores and gender, t(1342.36) = -0.053, P = .95). There is a statistically significant difference between the empathy scores and the years of medical school, F(14, 1448) = 4.95, P = .01. Concerning the specialty interests, there is no statistically significant difference between the empathy score and specialty interests.
The findings of this study showed that in Western countries, medical students performed better than Pakistani medical students on the empathy scale. This finding has important implications for Pakistani medical educators to improve the interpersonal skills of medical students in the context of patient care. Inconsistent with our expectations and experiences, our findings do not support that female medical students scored better than their male counterparts on the empathy scale. Because of the nature of a cross-sectional study, it is impossible to argue the decline of empathy during medical school training.
研究巴基斯坦本科医学生的共情水平。基于文献综述提出了三个假设。（1）女性医学生的共情水平高于男性医学生。（2）巴基斯坦学生在医学院学习期间共情得分会有所变化。（3）对以人为主的专业感兴趣的医学生得分高于对以技术为主的专业感兴趣的学生。
这是一种定量研究方法，采用横断面设计，对来自巴基斯坦8所私立和公立医学院校的1453名学生进行研究。样本包括41.1%（n = 597）的男学生和58.9%（n = 856）的女学生。使用经过充分验证的自填式问卷《杰斐逊医生共情量表》（JSPE）收集实证数据。
学生的平均共情得分为4.77，标准差为0.72。结果表明，共情得分与性别之间无统计学显著关联，t(1342.36) = -0.053，P = 0.95）。共情得分与医学院学习年限之间存在统计学显著差异，F(14, 1448) = 4.95，P = 0.01。关于专业兴趣，共情得分与专业兴趣之间无统计学显著差异。
本研究结果表明，在西方国家，医学生在共情量表上的表现优于巴基斯坦医学生。这一发现对巴基斯坦医学教育工作者在患者护理背景下提高医学生的人际沟通技巧具有重要意义。与我们的预期和经验不一致的是，我们的研究结果不支持女性医学生在共情量表上的得分高于男性。由于横断面研究的性质，无法论证医学院培训期间共情能力的下降。
