Centre for Medical Education (CenMED), Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Department of Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Korean J Med Educ. 2022 Mar;34(1):17-26. doi: 10.3946/kjme.2022.216. Epub 2022 Mar 1.
Empathy levels have been observed to often decrease when medical undergraduates move to the clinical years, particularly in the Western countries. However, empathy either remains similar or increases in many Asian medical schools. This study investigated the longitudinal empathy profile of medical students in Singapore.
Two cohorts of medical students who enrolled in 2013 and 2014 to the National University of Singapore were tracked for 5 years. The Jefferson Scale of Empathy-student version was used. Analyses on the mean of the empathy level and individual factors, year-wise and gender comparison were conducted.
Average response rates for cohort 1 and 2 were 68.1% (n=181-263) and 55.4% (n=81-265), respectively. For both cohorts, there was no significant change across year of study in the mean empathy score. Average scores for both cohorts were 113.94 and 115.66. Though not significant, we observed mean empathy to be lowest at the end of year 5 (112.74) and highest in year 2 (114.72) for cohort 1 while for cohort 2, the lowest level of empathy was observed in year 5 (114.20) and highest in year 4 (118.42). Analysis of subcomponents of empathy only showed a significant difference for cohort one factor 1 (perspective taking) and factor 3 (standing in patients' shoes) across the study years.
No significant change in empathy score was observed during the transition from pre-clinical to clinical years, unlike many Western and Far-Eastern studies. This might be due to the curriculum and influence of the Asian values.
当医学生进入临床阶段时,同理心水平往往会下降,这种情况尤其在西方国家更为明显。然而,在许多亚洲医学院校,同理心要么保持不变,要么有所增加。本研究调查了新加坡医学生的同理心纵向发展情况。
对 2013 年和 2014 年入读新加坡国立大学的两批医学生进行了为期 5 年的跟踪研究。使用杰斐逊同理心量表-学生版进行测量。对平均同理心水平和个体因素进行了分析,并进行了年度和性别比较。
第一组和第二组的平均回复率分别为 68.1%(n=181-263)和 55.4%(n=81-265)。对于两个队列,在学习年限上,平均同理心得分没有显著变化。两个队列的平均分数分别为 113.94 和 115.66。尽管没有统计学意义,但我们观察到,第一组的平均同理心在第 5 年(112.74)最低,在第 2 年(114.72)最高;而对于第二组,同理心最低水平出现在第 5 年(114.20),最高水平出现在第 4 年(118.42)。对同理心子成分的分析仅显示,第一组的因素 1(换位思考)和因素 3(站在患者的角度)在整个研究期间存在显著差异。
与许多西方和远东的研究不同,在从基础医学到临床医学的过渡期间,同理心评分没有显著变化。这可能是由于课程和亚洲价值观的影响。