The relationship between subjective well-being and empathy among Turkish medical students

Abstract

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. Background: Empathy as a part of humanistic medicine is an important component of medical education and could be taught throughout the years of medical study. In Turkey the national core medical curriculum is somewhat insufficient in terms of teaching empathy. In this study we wanted to measure empathy and to determine if there is a relationship between subjective well-being and empathy. Material & Methods: We used the Jefferson Scale of Empathy to measure empathy, Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales and the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire to measure the subjective well-being. Participants were first, third and sixth year (final-year) medical students. The total number of participants was 600 which represented 71.1% of the students of the corresponding medical school. Results: The mean empathy scores of Turkish students were found to be lower than of their counterparts in the Western countries. Female students had significantly higher scores than male students and there was a decline in empathy with increasing class-years. We found a significant positive relationship between happiness and empathy. Conclusions: Teaching empathy through the development of a new medical curriculum with a more humanistic approach should be a concern of medical schools in Turkey.