Abstract
Several studies have demonstrated a correlation between specific personal traits and empathy. However, it is not clear if persons with certain personality traits lack the intent to show empathic behavior or if other factors independent of their intent are affecting their empathic behavior. To answer this question, we asked 132 medical students to fill out questionnaires evaluating the General Intention to Show Empathic Behavior (GISEB) and the five personality traits measured by NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI). Additionally, we evaluated the influence of other factors, such as age, gender, curricular progress (second versus fourth year), and preferred specialization after graduation. We performed a Pearson’s correlation and a regression analysis. Results indicate that the five personality traits and gender have little influence on the General Intention (GISEB), only extraversion (r = .221, 95% CI [.013–.394], p = .027), and agreeableness (r = .229, 95% CI [.021–.428], p = .022) correlated with the intention. The only predictor for General Intention (GISEB) was curricular progress (β = − .27, p < .05), showing a decrease of General Intention to Show Empathic Behavior from second to fourth year of university (U = 1203.5, p = .002). A further finding indicates that gender and personality influence the students’ wish of specialization after graduation: Agreeableness (F(12, 53) = 2.376, p = .016) impacted the preferred specialization. Our study demonstrated that medical students’ personality might not notably impact the intention to show empathic behavior. Further research is needed to investigate moderating effects.
Highlights
Empathy is a crucial skill for every physician
Medical students (N = 200) of the second and fourth year of the medical university of Vienna were asked to fill out two questionnaires (NEO-FFI and General Intention to Show Empathic Behavior (GISEB)) between two obligatory trainings on communication skills (Ärztliche Gesprächsführung)
Our study showed only a few small correlations between the personality traits Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness (NEO-FFI) and the student’s GISEB
Summary
Empathy is a crucial skill for every physician. Recent literature has shown that physician’s level of empathy correlates with patient satisfaction (Winefield and Chur-Hansen 2000; Schmid Mast et al 2004; Hojat et al 2011; Derksen et al 2013), patient compliance (Winefield and Chur-Hansen 2000; Schmid Mast et al 2004; Hojat et al 2011), and clinical outcome (Winefield and Chur-Hansen 2000; Derksen et al 2013). It was often found that the level of empathy was the result of the quality of the training, but heavily contingent on the student’s personality as well. An effective way to measure the personality structure is the Big Five personality model (NEO Five-Factor Inventory-3 (NEOFFI)) (McCrae and Costa 2012), which include the five personality traits of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. We found seven studies investigating the relationship between the NEO-FFI and empathy among Japanese, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and American university students. All four studies showed a significant association between Agreeableness (Del Barrio et al 2004; Nettle 2007; Wakabayashi and Kawashima 2015; Melchers et al 2016), two between Extraversion (Wakabayashi and Kawashima 2015; Nettle, 2007), two between Conscientiousness
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