Empathy in clinical dietitians and dietetic interns

On the premise that empathy is important in patient care and nutrition counseling, the empathy levels of 217 clinical dietitians and 168 dietetic interns were measured using the Davis Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The Interpersonal Reactivity Index is designed to measure four aspects of empathy: empathic concern (EC), fantasy (FS), personal distress (PD), and perspective-taking (PT). Personal and professional characteristics were surveyed to determine possible influence on empathy. The instrument was mailed to 26 randomly selected internship programs. All of the dietetic interns and clinical dietitians who spend 80% of their time in patient care were requested to participate. The mean ages of the dietitians and interns were 35 and 25 years, respectively. Interns scored significantly higher on the EC (29.06, p less than .05) and FS (24.65, p less than .0005) scales than the dietitians (EC = 28.20, FS = 22.53). There was a highly significant negative correlation (r = -0.26, p less than .0001) between fantasy and age for dietitians and interns and between fantasy and experience for the dietitians (r = -0.23, p less than .0005). Dietitians and interns who had had graduate coursework in counselling, psychology, and/or educational psychology had significantly lower mean scores on the PD (17.14, p less than .05) and EC (27.82, p less than .05) scales and a significantly higher mean score on the PT (27.06, p less than .05) scale. Responses to an opinion question indicated that the mean for ideal percentage of time spent in direct patient contact was 70.1 for dietitians and 61.4 for interns, a highly significant difference (p less than .0001).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)