Empathy Levels in Undergraduate Paramedic Students

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Author(s)
Williams, Brett
Boyle, Malcolm J.
Howard, Stuart
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2015
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Empathetic behaviour is regarded as a positive trait amongst healthcare professionals and has been attributed to increased patient compliance, greater patient satisfaction, and greater diagnostic accuracy and reduced rates of clinical errors. A cross sectional study employing a convenience sample of first, second and third year undergraduate paramedic students at Monash University from 2008-2010. Student empathy scores where measured with the Jefferson Scale of Empathy -- Health Profession Student version (JSE-HPS); a validated, self-reporting questionnaire. A total of 552 students were enrolled in the study, of which 69% ...
View more >Empathetic behaviour is regarded as a positive trait amongst healthcare professionals and has been attributed to increased patient compliance, greater patient satisfaction, and greater diagnostic accuracy and reduced rates of clinical errors. A cross sectional study employing a convenience sample of first, second and third year undergraduate paramedic students at Monash University from 2008-2010. Student empathy scores where measured with the Jefferson Scale of Empathy -- Health Profession Student version (JSE-HPS); a validated, self-reporting questionnaire. A total of 552 students were enrolled in the study, of which 69% were females and 83% were aged under 25. The mean overall JSE-HPS score for the cohort was 108.60. Female students displayed significantly higher empathy scores of 110.27 compared to males at 105.36. There was also a significant difference noted between the 2008 JSE-HPS score 106.32, when compared to the 2009 cohort, 110.18. There was no significant difference found in mean JSE-HPS scores across differing age groups.
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View more >Empathetic behaviour is regarded as a positive trait amongst healthcare professionals and has been attributed to increased patient compliance, greater patient satisfaction, and greater diagnostic accuracy and reduced rates of clinical errors. A cross sectional study employing a convenience sample of first, second and third year undergraduate paramedic students at Monash University from 2008-2010. Student empathy scores where measured with the Jefferson Scale of Empathy -- Health Profession Student version (JSE-HPS); a validated, self-reporting questionnaire. A total of 552 students were enrolled in the study, of which 69% were females and 83% were aged under 25. The mean overall JSE-HPS score for the cohort was 108.60. Female students displayed significantly higher empathy scores of 110.27 compared to males at 105.36. There was also a significant difference noted between the 2008 JSE-HPS score 106.32, when compared to the 2009 cohort, 110.18. There was no significant difference found in mean JSE-HPS scores across differing age groups.
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Journal Title
International Journal of Caring Sciences
Volume
8
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2015. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Subject
Medical and Health Sciences not elsewhere classified