Training on empathy skills for elderly persons to medical undergraduates: A quasi-experimental study

Undergraduate medical students often lack the soft skill of empathy which is considered as an important attribute for doctors. Hence, this study was conducted to improve the empathy skills among undergraduate students of a medical college in Kolkata.

A quasi-experimental study was conducted in the Rural Health Training Centre of a medical college in Kolkata among the undergraduate medical students during community medicine posting. Students were assessed for baseline empathy by Jefferson's Scale of Empathy (student's version) (JSE-S). Baseline perception was taken from geriatric persons about the empathy level of medical undergraduates using Jefferson's Scale of Patient's Perception about Physician's Empathy (JSPPE). Training module was prepared, validated and imparted. Post-training score was obtained using the scales for students as well as geriatric persons. Data were entered in MS Excel and analysed using STATA MP16.

Total of 93 students participated. Overall Mean ± SD of pre-score of JES-S was 102.03 ± 13.02, and post-score was 109.03 ± 14.57; the difference was found to be statistically significant (P < 0.001). With respect to JSPPE, score difference was found to be statistically significant (P < 0.001). Significant difference was present in scores between the students who prefer people-oriented specialities compared to the technology-oriented specialities (P < 0.05). Increase in mean empathy score was significantly higher among female students than their male counterparts (P = 0.01).

The study shows the effectiveness of training module in increasing empathy score among medical undergraduates which is the need of the hour to establish the proper building block of doctor-patient relationship.