The Relationship between Empathy and Medical Education System, Grades, and Personality in Medical College Students and Medical School Students

Abstract

PURPOSE This study investigated the relationship between empathy and medical education system, grades, and personality in medical college (MC) students and medical school (MS) students. METHODS One hundred fifty-five MC students and 137 MS students participated in this study, completing questionnaires on sociodemographic data, Jefferson Scale of Empathy, S-version, Korean edition (JSE-S-K), and Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). RESULTS Reward Dependence (RD), Cooperativeness (C), and Self-directedness+ Cooperativeness (SC), which are subscales of the TCI, correlated significantly with JSE-S-K score. Third-year students had significantly higher scores on the JSE-S-K than first-year students. MS students had significantly higher scores on the JSE-S-K and the SC subscale of the TCI than MC students. However, there were no significant differences in empathy with regard to age, sex, motivation toward medical science, club activity, and applied specialty. CONCLUSION These results suggest that empathy is associated with personality traits, such as RD, C, and SC, and medical education curriculum contributes incrementally to empathy for students. The difference in test scores for empathy between MC students and MS students might be due to differences in personality traits, such as SC.