Soledad, felicidad y empatía clínica en estudiantes que inician los estudios de Medicina

Introduction

The career choice is influenced by individual and environmental factors. In medicine, the altruistic motivation and the predisposition towards learning have been described as individual factors. For its part, belonging to a socio-family environment facilitates the development of social skills of understanding and communication with the patients. These four elements are also main components of clinical empathy, a representative attribute of medicine.

Objective

To determine whether clinical empathy can be identified as a characteristic element among those who choose to study medicine.

Material and methods

An observational survey-study was performed in a sample of 204 first-year medical students that were finishing their first academic semester. The survey included the Jefferson Empathy Scale (JSE-S), the Loneliness Scale for Adults (SELSA-S), the Self-Perceived Happiness Scale (SRH), and a psycho-biographical form with variables possibly related to their career choice. Analyses included comparative and correlational tests.

Results

Participants were 163 (76 male) medical students. No differences were observed in the global score of clinical empathy by any of the psycho-biographic variables studied. Empathy was positively correlated with happiness (ρ = + 0.20; p = 0.01), and negatively correlated with loneliness in the family (ρ = − 0.23; p = 0.003) and in the social (ρ = −0.21; p = 0.006) environments.

Conclusions

Despite the notable psycho-biographical differences observed, clinical empathy appeared as a common characteristic among medical students. Additionally, more empathetic students expressed greater personal satisfaction. For their part, less empathetic students showed greater deficiencies in social skills.