Empathy Training Research Articles

The Impact of Perspective Taking Training in Student Teachers on Unintended Empathy Components

Empathy training focuses mainly on improving perspective taking (PT) skills, but rarely considers possible changes in other, affective empathy components. In this study, we aimed to examine for unintended changes in the other empathy components emotional concern, personal distress, and fantasy, some of which were not specifically intended. We used a trait (Saarbrücken Personality Questionnaire for Measuring Empathy) and a state (Jefferson Scale for Empathy - Teacher Version) questionnaire respectively. On the trait measures, only the PT score improved, as it was intended by the training. No significant change in the affective factors occurred. Thus, the training showed no undesirable side effects. Looking at the Jefferson Scale factors related to pedagogical situations, significant changes occurred in the areas of perspective taking, emotional understanding of students, pedagogy more important than empathy, and student-centeredness. Since these are only pedagogically relevant changes in attitudes, this is consistent with the goal of the empathy training. Unwanted side effects were not observed here either.

Instilling SDG Considerations in Undergraduate Design Capstone

Engineering education in universities often focuses on theoretical problems, with limited opportunities for students to consider the societal and environmental impact of their designs. Senior engineering design capstones typically involve industry partners providing the problem and context, further restricting students' ability to explore implications. Despite being aware of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), students prioritize personal over professional implications. This study aims to incorporate SDGs into the Engineering Capstone experience by introducing them in a senior student-driven, multidisciplinary Engineering Capstone Design class. Students receive empathy training and use Canadian indicators of UN SDGs to align their designs with positive and negative indicators. They engage with users for feedback on the impact of their choices on SDGs, bridging the "blind spot" in their design work and enhancing understanding of the broader context of their designs. Incorporating empathy training and a co-design approach can improve students' understanding of the potential impact of their designs on SDGs.

Beyond empathy training for practitioners: Cultivating empathic healthcare systems and leadership.

Empathic care benefits patients and practitioners, and empathy training for practitioners can enhance empathy. However, practitioners do not operate in a vacuum. For empathy to thrive, healthcare consultations must be situated in a nurturing milieu, guided by empathic, compassionate leaders. Empathy will be suppressed, or even reversed if practitioners are burned out and working in an unpleasant, under-resourced environment with increasingly poorly served and dissatisfied patients. Efforts to enhance empathy must therefore go beyond training practitioners to address system-level factors that foster empathy. These include patient education, cultivating empathic leadership, customer service training for reception staff, valuing cleaning and all ancillary staff, creating healing spaces, and using appropriate, efficiency saving technology to reduce the administrative burden on healthcare practitioners. We divide these elements into environmental factors, organisational factors, job factors, and individual characteristics.

Mindfulness-based empathy training supported by Obese Simulation Suit: Randomized Controlled Trial

Nursing serves as the foundation of patient-centered healthcare services, and the empathetic connections formed between nurses and patients are integral to delivering quality care. In this context, the mental well-being and empathy levels of nurses significantly impact the efficiency of healthcare services and patient contentment. This study investigates the impact of mindfulness-based empathy training and obese simulation suits on nursing students' attitudes and empathy levels towards obese patients. The research, conducted as a randomized controlled trial, encompassed 84 nursing students and employed the "Attitude Scale Towards Obese Patients," "Jefferson Empathy Scale for Nursing Students," and "Descriptive Information Form." Data analysis involved two-factor ANOVA for mixed measurements. The study revealed significant interaction effects between group and time concerning nursing students' attitudes towards obese individuals [F(1,70) = 43.281, p < 0.05] as well as their empathy levels towards obese individuals [F(1,70) = 15.657, p < 0.05]. The experimental group exhibited a noteworthy increase in both attitudes and empathy levels compared to the control group. Furthermore, Single Factor ANOVA for Repeated Measures revealed a statistically significant difference in the experimental group's attitudes and empathy scores across pretest, posttest, and follow-up assessments [p < 0.01, partial η2 = 0.492 and 0.186, respectively]. These findings underscore the effectiveness of these interventions in enhancing essential nursing competencies necessary for providing comprehensive patient care. Thus, integrating these methods into the curriculum is recommended to cultivate more positive attitudes and heightened empathy among nursing students, particularly concerning obese patients, throughout their educational journey.

Enhancing Unit-linked Insurance Consumer Loyalty: The Role of Service Quality, Information Asymmetry, and Agent Marketing Strategies

Unit-linked insurance (PAYDI), Indonesia's top-selling life insurance product, has driven industrial growth in the last two decades through effective agent marketing. However, its complexity, blending protection, and investment have drawn criticism for consumers’ detriment and increasing complaints about insurance agent practices. This study aimed to achieve critical objectives by examining consumer perceptions of agent-provided service quality and distinguishing between active and lapsed policyholders as a measure of loyalty. It also seeks to construct a model that delineates the impact of service quality on consumer satisfaction and loyalty with information asymmetry as a moderating variable. This study used a cross-sectional research design, and gathered data through electronic questionnaires distributed to PAYDI insurance consumers. Purposive sampling was used to select participants, resulting in 159 respondents meeting the study’s criteria. Data analysis was conducted using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). These findings underscore the critical influence of agent reliability and empathy on consumer satisfaction with information asymmetry emerging as a key moderator between satisfaction and loyalty. These results imply that reinforcing agent training in reliability, empathy, and efforts to minimize information asymmetry significantly enhances consumer satisfaction and loyalty in the insurance sector. This research suggests that companies should develop a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and incentives for agents to enhance both customer acquisition and post-purchase services, ensure transparent information sharing, and set measurable satisfaction targets such as the Net Promoter Score (NPS). Future studies should focus on operational diversity and alternative proxies of firms.

Towards an empathic hidden curriculum in medical school: A roadmap.

The "hidden curriculum" in medical school includes a stressful work environment, un-empathic role models, and prioritisation of biomedical knowledge. It can provoke anxiety and cause medical students to adapt by becoming cynical, distanced and less empathic. Lower empathy, in turn, has been shown to harm patients as well as practitioners. Fortunately, evidence-based interventions can counteract the empathy dampening effects of the hidden curriculum. These include early exposure to real patients, providing students with real-world experiences, training role models, assessing empathy training, increasing the focus on the biopsychosocial model of disease, and enhanced wellbeing education. Here, we provide an overview of these interventions. Taken together, they can bring about an "empathic hidden curriculum" which can reverse the decline in medical student empathy.

Evidence-Based Practice Approach on Clinical Empathy Skills Among Health Professionals: A Systematic Review Protocol

Introduction: Effective educational programs promote and strengthen nursing students’ empathetic skills, contributing to health professionals’ pleasure and emotions of personal accomplishment by offering a sense of excellent personal well-being, quality therapeutic management, and clinical expertise. Objectives: This review will synthesize the available evidence on the effectiveness of clinical empathy in general practice and clinical empathy skill training among health professionals. Review questions were structured using the PICOT framework. Inclusion criteria: We will include articles that detail original empirical studies and systematic reviews related to empathy skills among health professionals and the effect of empathy training on clinical empathy skills. Methods: The databases include the National Library of Medicine, SCOPUS, CENTRAL, MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, and EBSCO. The key methods for facilitating the review will be print and electronic resources. Major medical subject heading (mesh) terms in titles and abstracts will be used in the search. To establish existing literature on the empathy training program, the search will contain the terms “empathy,” “clinical empathy,” and “empathy training” in all fields of the databases. The search strategy will commence from 2023 onward with no language restrictions. A team of independent reviewers will screen the retrieved titles, abstracts, and full-text reports and check the data quality using the John Hopkins EBP model and the literature will be systematically reviewed by following PRISMA Guidelines.

Learning from the implementation of clinical empathy training: an explorative qualitative study in search of the barriers and facilitators

Learning from the implementation of clinical empathy training: an explorative qualitative study in search of the barriers and facilitators

Effectiveness of PEDE Training for The Psychological Well-Being of Women

Every individual will experience various pleasant or unpleasant events, including women. One of unpleasant experience is domestic violence. Some forms of fear and stress experienced by victims will lead to behavior that can hinder their daily activities. For this reason, treatment needs to be carried out by helping them to have abilities and improving their quality of life through psychological well-being. PEDE (Forgiveness, Self-Efficacy and Empathy) training aims to improve the psychological well-being of women from an internal perspective through three main training elements. This research used a quasi-experiment method and non-randomized one group pre-test post-test design involving 30 women from Palam Village Banjarbaru. The research results show that PEDE training is effective in improving the psychological well-being of women in Palam Village. It is hoped that this training in forgiveness, self-efficacy and empathy can be applied in everyday life as a form of strengthening the family, and an effort to reduce the mental burden of the problems experienced so as to achieve the psychological well-being of women in the family.

Being kind in unkind spaces: a qualitative examination of how medical educators and first year medical students perceive empathy training.

It has become de rigueur for healthcare systems to tout their ability to provide compassionate medical care that addresses the emotional as well as physical needs of patients. Not surprisingly, then, there is considerable pressure on medical schools to train their students to be empathic. Existing literature on empathy training in medicine tends to focus on how to build emotional intelligence in individual trainees, largely ignoring the sociocultural factors that contribute to or thwart empathy development in medical school. Additionally, research tends to examine student perspectives, with little attention given to medical educators and their viewpoints. In this paper, we adopt an "emotion practice" framework and utilize an inductive descriptive study design to qualitatively consider how first year medical students (N = 23) and their instructors (N = 9) perceive empathy training at a site we call Midtown Medical School. We find that both groups have an understanding of empathic capital but differ in their beliefs about the utility and legitimacy of this capital. Both educators and students also recognize the limitations of standardized empathy curriculum but do not agree on the implications of such rote learning. Finally, students and instructors alike find the hidden curriculum of medical school to be antithetical to empathy development, concurring that it is difficult to cultivate empathy in spaces where biomedical coursework is prioritized over social-emotional learning. In short, both groups find it difficult to be kind in an unkind place.

(O-F7) Augmented Reality for Empathy Training: Stepping into the Patient’s Shoes

(O-F7) Augmented Reality for Empathy Training: Stepping into the Patient’s Shoes

The Effect of Empathy Training on Bullying Behavior in Juvenile Prisoners: A Quasi Experiment [Letter

The Effect of Empathy Training on Bullying Behavior in Juvenile Prisoners: A Quasi Experiment [Letter

Nurturing Empathy through Arts, Literature, and Role Play for Postgraduate Trainees of Ophthalmology.

Empathy is essential in patient-centered compassionate health care. Lack of formal training, workload, patient factors, and digitalization have been attributed to its regression. Empathy can be nurtured by educational interventions. A structured empathy education module for postgraduate trainees is not available in India. The aim for this research was to develop, deliver, and evaluate one for ophthalmology postgraduate trainees. This interventional study was conducted in the tertiary ophthalmology department of Western India during 2022-2023. Four workshops comprising of interactive lectures, literature, creative arts, and role plays were delivered with trained facilitators. Data from surveys for trainee self-assessment, patient perception of trainee empathy, pre-post knowledge test, and trainee and facilitator feedback were collected and analyzed. Seventy-nine ophthalmology postgraduate trainees participated in this intervention. Excessive workload and lack of training were shared as the barriers to empathetic care. Trainees showed improved knowledge, skills, and attitude in empathy after the workshops. The facilitators and trainees were satisfied with the learning goals, execution, utility, feasibility, and relevance of the workshops. Ninety-three percent trainees want this module to be a part of postgraduate curriculum. This study substantiates the use of structured interactive training for cultivating empathy in postgraduate trainees. Barriers against empathy were identified and can be mitigated by restorative measures. Literature, arts, and role plays are the effective education tools for empathy.

Heartfelt Healers: Assessing Empathy Level of Medical Students toward Patient Management

Background: Empathy is a fundamental component in the medical field, essential for effective patient-centered care. It facilitates better patient outcomes, accurate diagnoses, and sound decision-making. Previous studies have indicated varying levels of empathy among medical students across different regions and cultures. Objective: This study aimed to assess the empathy levels among medical students towards patients, focusing on a specific student population in Karachi, Pakistan. It sought to compare these levels with existing data from various international contexts and to understand the implications for medical education. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-student version (JSE-S) among 150 undergraduate medical students from various medical institutes in Karachi, Pakistan. The JSE-S scale, comprising 20 items rated on a 7-point Likert scale, evaluates both positive and negatively worded items to determine empathy levels. Demographic data, including age, gender, cultural background, year of study, academic performance, and clinical exposure, were also collected. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 25.0, focusing on calculating frequencies, percentages, and mean scores. Results: The overall mean empathy score was 98.7867, with positive items scoring a mean of 58.06 and negative items a mean of 40.77. These scores were slightly lower compared to studies from countries like China, Japan, Kuwait, Iran, and the United States but were similar to a regional study conducted in 2019 in Pakistan. Demographic analysis revealed a diverse cultural background with a balanced gender distribution and varied academic and clinical exposure. Conclusion: The study highlights a moderate level of empathy among medical students in Karachi, suggesting the need for enhanced empathy training in medical curricula. The findings advocate for the implementation of educational strategies, including workshops and courses on empathic behavior and ethics, to strengthen empathy in future medical practitioners.

Changes in Medical Students’ Empathy Level in Different Academic Years: A Trend Analysis

Empathy is an essential attribute that enables physicians to comprehend the condition and emotions of their patients, facilitating accurate responses. Consequently, empathy has been linked to improved diagnoses and enhanced clinical outcomes. This study aimed to assess the changing patterns of empathy levels among medical students during their academic tenure in medical school. A descriptive study was conducted using convenience sampling, involving 361 medical students in Ahvaz, Iran, between September and December 2021. Empathy levels were assessed using the Persian adaptation of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy (student version) (JSE-S). Statistical analyses were conducted using the t-test and variance analysis (ANOVA). Based on the empathy scale (ranging from 20 to 140), the mean empathy score among medical students was found to be 106.42±14.8, exhibiting variations based on study year, gender, and grade point average (GPA) (p &lt; 0.01). Notably, a significant decline in empathy scores was observed in final-year students compared to their counterparts in the first year (113.39 vs. 97.05; p &lt; 0.001). Female students and those with higher GPAs demonstrated a higher level of empathy (p &lt; 0.001). The results of the present study revealed that medical students in Iran exhibit a moderate level of empathy compared to findings from local studies. Furthermore, the findings suggest a decline in empathy levels as students progress through their years in medical school. Based on these findings, it is strongly recommended to integrate empathy training into the medical curriculum. Such an approach would enhance student learning and contribute to positive patient care outcomes.

Program Pelatihan Empati Sebagai Strategi Mengurangi Perilaku Bullying pada Remaja

This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of various empathy training programs, including Role-Playing, Effective Communication Training, Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs), Peer Mediation Programs, Emotional Literacy Training, and Anti-Bullying Training Programs, in reducing bullying behavior among adolescents. Through a literature review approach, the study examines the impact and implementation of each program in developing empathy and social skills. The findings indicate that these programs can significantly reduce bullying incidents, although each program has its limitations, such as reliance on active student participation and resource constraints. This study emphasizes the importance of continuous training and school support for effective implementation. This research provides new insights for educators, practitioners, and policymakers in designing effective strategies to reduce bullying behavior and promote the development of empathy among adolescents

Do Biometric Analyses and Empathy Training Predict the Development of Empathy?

Many healthcare education programs recognize the importance of empathy in professional practice and, consequently, include empathy training in their curricula. Unfortunately, the literature has not yet demonstrated that empathy training consistently yields greater levels of empathy. This may partly stem from the fact that empathy is frequently measured using (valid and reliable) self-reported scales. These instruments provide a “snapshot” of a respondent’s empathy but provide minimal information about the development of empathy. Applying biometric analyses within the context of empathy training permits collecting additional data that may provide a more developmental evaluation of empathy training. This study empirically examines whether biometric measures are statistically significant predictors of empathy when employed within the context of health-related empathy training. We find that empathy training does not significantly impact self-reported levels of cognitive or affective empathy as measured. However, biometric information collected from individuals who completed empathy training does significantly predict affective (but not cognitive) empathy.

PELATIHAN EMPATI UNTUK PENCEGAHAN PERILAKU BULLYING PADA SISWA SEKOLAH DASAR

Community service carried out at SDN 06 Bantarjaya regarding empathy training to prevent bullying behavior in elementary school students which aims to train and increase insight into empathetic behavior to be more respectful of fellow students in order to avoid bullying behavior. This program was implemented in accordance with the results of observations where at the time of observation there was still a lack of empathetic behavior between students, both between students and students with other school members. This activity was carried out from August to September 2023, using the method of presenting material about bullying and empathy, role playing, and the final activity was watching a video about bullying behavior, then students were given a piece of paper to write down what experiences they had while watching the video. The result of this activity is an increase in understanding about empathetic behavior and a change in students' empathetic behavior towards their fellow students.

Technology in the service of caregiver well‐being: an online psycho‐educational intervention combined with virtual reality

AbstractBackgroundCare for community‐dwelling people with dementia (PwD) is frequently delegated to relatives, who find themselves in the role of informal caregivers (iCGs) with no practical knowledge to manage their loved ones. This situation puts iCGs at high risk for emotional distress. We will assess the efficacy of an online psycho‐educational program combined with an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience to reduce iCGs perceived stress by acting on the cognitive and affective components of empathy.MethodUsing covariate‐adaptive (by sex and baseline level of perceived stress) randomization, 100 iCGs of mild‐to‐moderate Alzheimer’s disease patients will be assigned to i) an online 6‐week psycho‐educational program (control arm); or ii) the same psycho‐educational program integrated with VR (experimental arm). VR consists of 360‐degree videos and allows caregivers to experience dementia symptoms from the patient’s perspective. The primary outcome will be a change in emotional distress, assessed with the Zarit Burden Inventory and the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory. In addition, changes in brain activity while reading emotional stories (protocol modified from Ashar, 2017) will be assessed as a secondary outcome in a subsample of 50 participants who will undergo magnetic resonance imaging. Primary and secondary outcomes will be measured before and after the intervention. A 2‐month clinical follow‐up is also scheduled.ResultTo date, 20 iCGs (mean age: 58; range 30‐79; female: 75%; children: 55%) have been randomized to the 2 arms. The psycho‐educational program provides support for the home management of PwD, by offering knowledge on symptom management and enhancing strategies based on the cognitive component of empathy. During each session, iCGs are exposed to 30 minutes of empathy training with i) imagery exercises or ii) VR. The experimental intervention is expected to result in deeper disease comprehension and strengthen empathy’s cognitive component. At the network level, we expect to observe a greater activation of cognitive empathy circuits and a lower activation of affective empathy circuits in the experimental group.ConclusionTo our knowledge, this will be the first randomized controlled trial assessing the synergistic effect of combining traditional psycho‐educational intervention with VR in iCGs and measuring both clinical and imaging markers.

Technology in the service of caregiver well‐being: an online psycho‐educational intervention combined with virtual reality

AbstractBackgroundCare for community‐dwelling people with dementia (PwD) is frequently delegated to relatives, who find themselves in the role of informal caregivers (iCGs) with no practical knowledge to manage their loved ones. This situation puts iCGs at high risk for emotional distress. We will assess the efficacy of an online psycho‐educational program combined with an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience to reduce iCGs perceived stress by acting on the cognitive and affective components of empathy.MethodUsing covariate‐adaptive (by sex and baseline level of perceived stress) randomization, 100 iCGs of mild‐to‐moderate Alzheimer’s disease patients will be assigned to i) an online 6‐week psycho‐educational program (control arm); or ii) the same psycho‐educational program integrated with VR (experimental arm). VR consists of 360‐degree videos and allows caregivers to experience dementia symptoms from the patient’s perspective. The primary outcome will be a change in emotional distress, assessed with the Zarit Burden Inventory and the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory. In addition, changes in brain activity while reading emotional stories (protocol modified from Ashar, 2017) will be assessed as a secondary outcome in a subsample of 50 participants who will undergo magnetic resonance imaging. Primary and secondary outcomes will be measured before and after the intervention. A 2‐month clinical follow‐up is also scheduled.ResultTo date, 20 iCGs (mean age: 58; range 30‐79; female: 75%; children: 55%) have been randomized to the 2 arms. The psycho‐educational program provides support for the home management of PwD, by offering knowledge on symptom management and enhancing strategies based on the cognitive component of empathy. During each session, iCGs are exposed to 30 minutes of empathy training with i) imagery exercises or ii) VR. The experimental intervention is expected to result in deeper disease comprehension and strengthen empathy’s cognitive component. At the network level, we expect to observe a greater activation of cognitive empathy circuits and a lower activation of affective empathy circuits in the experimental group.ConclusionTo our knowledge, this will be the first randomized controlled trial assessing the synergistic effect of combining traditional psycho‐educational intervention with VR in iCGs and measuring both clinical and imaging markers.