Psychometrics, levels of empathy and their dimensions in postgraduate students of dental specialties at Andrés Bello University
Keywords:
Education, empathy, post grade, students, odontologyAbstract
Objectives: To determine the empathy presented by dentists coursing their postgraduate training. Compare levels of empathy between genders and odontology specialties.
Methods: An observational, exploratory, and cross-sectional study was utilized, analyzing all the postgraduate students at the School of Dentistry of the “Andrés Bello University”, in Chile (N = 195). The Jefferson Medical Empathy Scale was applied (EMMJ).
Results: The results showed relevant reliability of the empathy measure (α = 0.819, ω = 0.928), through confirmatory structure analysis, a three-factor structure was evidenced (χ2 / df = 1.445, GFI = 0.952, RMSEA = 0.047) and an adequate factorial invariance among men and women; women exhibited greater empathy in the global scale and perspective-taking dimension, not finding differences by gender in the dimension of caring with compassion and putting oneself in the other person’s place. The median empathy reached 120 points, being found under this range the specialties of Oral Rehabilitation (Med. = 114.5), Surgery (Med. = 117) and Periodontics (Med. = 117.5), Temporo-Mandibular Disorder (Med. = 121), Endodontics (Med. = 121), Orthodontics and dentomaxillofacial orthopedics (Med. =122), Implantology (Med. = 125) and Pediatric Dentistry (Med. = 127.5).
Conclusion: Levels of empathy are relatively high in general, but all specialties have low levels in the POOS dimension, which can potentially affect the empathic relationship with their patients.Downloads
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