Niveles de empatía, declinación empática y diferencias entre géneros en estudiantes de medicina en Cartagena, Colombia

Introduction: Empathy helps to develop an appropriate doctor–patient relationship, which, according to the literature is susceptible to decline. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to estimate the levels of empathy in general, and the potential for the growth of empathy in medical students. Materials and methods: This exploratory and cross-sectional study included students from the first to fifth academic year of the University Corporation Rafael Nunez (Cartagena, Colombia) (N = 971, n = 756, 77.86% of the population studied). Participants were given the Jefferson Scale of Empathy, Spanish version for medical students, validated and adapted in Colombia. A bifactorial variance analysis (model III) was used to find the mean differences between courses and genders, and the interaction between these two factors. Data was described using simple arithmetic graphs and processed with SPSS 20.0 to estimate the total potential for growth. Results: Differences were found between academic years and gender in empathy in general and in the component of “compassionate care”. Conclusion: The levels of empathy are relatively low, and the behavior of empathy levels does not match the concept of empathy decline. There are no gender differences and there is a considerable potential for growth of empathy, as well as its components.