The DOI matches its Crossref record; 41 of the 43 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
A Cross-sectional Measurement of Medical Student Empathy
Open accessAbstract
Background Empathy is important in the physician-patient relationship. Prior studies have suggested that physician empathy may decline with clinical training. Objective To measure and examine student empathy across medical school years. Design and participants A cross-sectional study of students at Boston University School of Medicine in 2006. Incoming students plus each class near the end of the academic year were surveyed. Measurements The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy-Student Version (JSPE-S), a validated 20-item self-administered questionnaire with a total score ranging from 20 to 140. JSPE-S scores were controlled for potential confounders such as gender, age, anticipated financial debt upon graduation, and future career interest. Results 658 students participated in the study (81.4% of the school population). The first-year medical student class had the highest empathy scores (118.5), whereas the fourth-year class had the lowest empathy scores (106.6). Measured empathy differed between second- and third-year classes (118.2 vs 112.7, P < .001), corresponding to the first year of clinical training. Empathy appears to increase from the incoming to the first-year class (115.5 vs 118.5, P = .02). Students preferring people-oriented specialties had higher empathy scores than students preferring technology-oriented specialties (114.6 vs 111.4, P = .002). Female students were more likely than male students to choose people-oriented specialties (51.5 vs 26.9%, P < .001). Females had higher JSPE-S scores than males (116.5 vs 112.1, P < .001). Age and debt did not affect empathy scores. Conclusions Empathy scores of students in the preclinical years were higher than in the clinical years. Efforts are needed to determine whether differences in empathy scores among the classes are cohort effects or represent changes occurring in the course of medical education. Future research is needed to confirm whether clinical training impacts empathy negatively, and, if so, whether interventions can be designed to mitigate this impact.
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“Such studies of medical student empathy are limited in several important ways: they measure only the student's self-assessment of empathy; the comparisons involve students from single osteopathic and allopathic institutions that are not generalizable to the broader populations of osteopathic and allopathic medical students; and they do not provide measures of empathy that reflect actual patient En”
From Empathy in Medicine Osteopathic and Allopathic Physician Interpersonal Manner, Empathy, and Communication Style and Clinical Status of Their Patients: A Pain Registry–Based Study (2019) · cites this paper as [5]
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“Alternatively, another study of selfreported empathy found a significant difference in favor of osteopathic medical students, 4 but only among thirdyear students in comparison with an externally acquired control group.5”
From Empathy in Medicine Osteopathic and Allopathic Physician Interpersonal Manner, Empathy, and Communication Style and Clinical Status of Their Patients: A Pain Registry–Based Study (2019) · cites this paper as [5]
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“Comparative studies of empathy have focused on osteopathic and allopathic medical students.”
From Empathy in Medicine Osteopathic and Allopathic Physician Interpersonal Manner, Empathy, and Communication Style and Clinical Status of Their Patients: A Pain Registry–Based Study (2019) · cites this paper as [5]
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Citations
Cites
Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach.
Davis, M. H. (1983) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113 · Cited by 10,272
Patient adherence to treatment: three decades of research. A comprehensive review
Vermeire, E., Hearnshaw, H., Royen, P. V., & Denekens, J. (2001) · Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2710.2001.00363.x · Cited by 1,833
Levinson, W. S. (1997) · JAMA · doi:10.1001/jama.277.7.553 · Cited by 1,794
Physician Empathy: Definition, Components, Measurement, and Relationship to Gender and Specialty
Hojat, M., Gonnella, J. S., Nasca, T. J., Mangione, S., Vergare, M. J., & Magee, M. M. (2002) · American Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.159.9.1563 · Cited by 1,318
The Effects of Physician Empathy on Patient Satisfaction and Compliance
Kim, S. S., Kaplowitz, S., & Johnston, M. V. (2004) · Evaluation & the Health Professions · doi:10.1177/0163278704267037 · Cited by 1,063
The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy: Development and Preliminary Psychometric Data
Hojat, M., Mangione, S., Nasca, T. J., Cohen, M. J. M., Gonnella, J. S., Erdmann, J. B., Veloski, J. J., & Magee, M. (2001) · Educational and Psychological Measurement · doi:10.1177/00131640121971158 · Cited by 1,052
An empirical study of decline in empathy in medical school
Hojat, M., Mangione, S., Nasca, T. J., Rattner, S., Erdmann, J. B., Gonnella, J. S., & Magee, M. (2004) · Medical Education · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2929.2004.01911.x · Cited by 864
Mercer, S. W., & Reynolds, W. (2002) · Europe PMC (PubMed Central) · Cited by 800
The Doctor-Patient Relationship and Malpractice
Beckman, H. (1994) · Archives of Internal Medicine · doi:10.1001/archinte.1994.00420120093010 · Cited by 762
Empathy in medical students as related to academic performance, clinical competence and gender
Hojat, M., Gonnella, J. S., Mangione, S., Nasca, T. J., Veloski, J. J., Erdmann, J. B., Callahan, C. A., & Magee, M. M. (2002) · Medical Education · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2923.2002.01234.x · Cited by 671
Research works printed but not linked: 1
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Empathy Decline and Its Reasons: A Systematic Review of Studies With Medical Students and Residents
Neumann, M., Edelhäuser, F., Tauschel, D., Fischer, M. R., Wirtz, M. A., Woopen, C., Haramati, A., & Scheffer, C. (2011) · Academic Medicine · doi:10.1097/acm.0b013e318221e615 · Cited by 1,708
The Devil is in the Third Year: A Longitudinal Study of Erosion of Empathy in Medical School
Hojat, M., Vergare, M. J., Maxwell, K., Brainard, G. C., Herrine, S. K., Isenberg, G. A., Veloski, J. J., & Gonnella, J. S. (2009) · Academic Medicine · doi:10.1097/acm.0b013e3181b17e55 · Cited by 1,673
Effectiveness of empathy in general practice: a systematic review
Derksen, F., Bensing, J., & Lagro-Janssen, A. (2013) · British Journal of General Practice · doi:10.3399/bjgp13x660814 · Cited by 1,034
“Empathy appears to increase during the first year of medical school, but decreases after the third year and remains low through the final year of medical school, measured using the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy–Student Version (JSPES).(17,66,67) In the study by Hojat et al,(66) there are no sex differences.”
The Role of Empathy in Health and Social Care Professionals
Moudatsou, M., Stavropoulou, A., Philalithis, A., & Koukouli, S. (2020) · Healthcare · doi:10.3390/healthcare8010026 · Cited by 645
“The scale includes 20 questions and the overall score ranges from twenty to one hundred and forty; higher scores indicate a better empathic relationship in the medical and therapeutic care [26,49,53,54].”
BackgroundTeaching Empathy to Medical Students
Batt-Rawden, S., Chisolm, M. S., Anton, B., & Flickinger, T. (2013) · Academic Medicine · doi:10.1097/acm.0b013e318299f3e3 · Cited by 614
Metadata
- Authors
- Chen, D., Lew, R., Hershman, W., & Orlander, J.
- Affiliations
- Boston University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Chen, Daniel
- Venue
- Journal of General Internal Medicine
- Published
- 2007-07-26
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 1434-1438
- ISSN
- 0884-8734 (ISSN-L)
- 1525-1497
- PMC
- PMC2305857
- OpenAlex
- W1974059841
- Cited by
- 547
- References
- 43
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 32 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 35 · 2021: 46 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 35 · 2018: 35 · 2017: 35 · 2016: 41 · 2015: 39 · 2014: 35 · 2013: 30 · 2012: 29
- FWCI
- 5.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Journal of General Internal Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DigitalGeorgetown (Georgetown University Library) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Empathy and Medical Education
- Social Sciences › Education › Innovations in Medical Education
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout
- Keywords
- physician empathy, medical students, specialty choice, gender differences, physician-patient relationship
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Analysis of Variance, Attitude of Health Personnel, Cross-Sectional Studies, Education, Medical, Undergraduate, Empathy, Female, Humans, Male, Probability, Surveys and Questionnaires, Sex Factors, Students, Medical, Time Factors
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