IJCM_32A: Attitude of Medical Students Regarding Empathy towards Patients in a Medical College in Mangalore

Background: The incorporation of medical humanities, an interdisciplinary field of medicine, in medical education may offer significant benefits to the medical community. This study was done to assess the attitude of medical students regarding empathy towards patients and to find out the perception of students about the inclusion of humanity studies to their undergraduate medical curriculum. Methodology: It was a Cross-sectional study done among Final Year MBBS Part One and Part Two, Post Graduate Students of Clinical Specialities and Interns of Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore and its associated teaching hospitals. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaire which consisted of three sections including Participant information, Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy – Student’s Version (JSPE-S) which will be used to measure empathy towards patients among medical students and questions on assessing the perception of students regarding the introduction of humanity studies in the medical curriculum. The collected data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 11.5. Likert scale was analysed using median (±2SD). For qualitative data statistical test Chi-square was used Results: The mean age of the 410 students who were surveyed was 22.11 with a standard deviation of ± 2.136. 41% of the respondents were male and 59% were female. The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy is measured on a scale of 20-140. Among the participants, 167 (40.7%) students scored between 46-90, categorized according to the Jefferson Scale as moderately empathetic. 243 students scored between 91-140 - categorized as high empathetic. None of the students scored between 20-45 (least empathetic category) Conclusion: Our study found that all the respondents were either moderately or highly empathetic according to the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy. A majority of respondents felt that it is important to understand the feelings and body language of the patient and that the emotions of the patient and family are important in the physician-patient relationship.