Does watching a movie improve empathy? A cluster randomized controlled trial.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Communication Skills
• Empathy Development

Background:

• Assessing methods to enhance medical student empathy.
• Investigating the impact of patient-physician encounter portrayals on empathy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of a movie and communication skills workshop on medical student empathy.
• To compare the impact of interventions alone versus in combination.

Main Methods:

• 133 medical students were divided into four groups: workshop only, movie only, movie then workshop, and control.
• The Jefferson Scale of Empathy (JSE) was administered pre-intervention, post-intervention, and one month later.
• Linear mixed-effects modeling analyzed intervention effects.

Main Results:

• All interventions showed an immediate increase in empathy scores compared to the control group.
• Empathy improvements remained significant at one month only in the workshop-only and movie-then-workshop groups.
• The combined intervention demonstrated a sustained positive effect on empathy.

Conclusions:

• Movie-based interventions provide a transient boost in student empathy.
• Combining movie viewing with communication skills training enhances and sustains empathy.
• Integrated approaches may be more effective for long-term empathy development in medical students.