Empathy in nursing students from the metropolitana university of Barranquilla (Colombia)

Abstract

Objective: to evaluate the Empathic Orientation in Nursing students of the Universidad Metropolitana of Barranquilla (Colombia). Method: a descriptive, exploratory and transversal study in which the Jefferson Medical Empathy Scale in an anonymous and confidential manner was applied to 489 students from the first to fourth undergraduate year of the Nursing Program of the Universidad Metropolitana (Barranquilla, Colombia); the corresponding ethical and methodological rigor was kept. Results: the ANOVA results were not significant in the Academic Year factor and in the interaction (p=0.261), but significant by Gender. It was observed that behavior was different in both genders. The masculine gender tends to descend between the first and third undergraduate year and female gender also descends between first and second undergraduate year to later reach the average levels of empathy of the male gender. Conclusion: the results obtained show that the means of the variable studied do not show a great difference between the different undergraduate courses, nevertheless, a slight increase in the fourth undergraduate year is observed. There were significant differences between genders, the scores observed in men students were higher than those obtained from women students.