Niveles de orientación empática en estudiantes de medicina de la Universidad Metropolitana de Barranquilla (Colombia)

Objective: To assess the level of empathy of the students of the medical program of the Metropolitan University according to sex and levels of education. Subjects and methods: Is an exploratory and cross-sectional research. The population included students from first to sixth academic year of Medicine School (n = 1581 N =2061) and was distributed per year: first: 219; second: 324; third: 258; fourth 278; fifth: 359 and sixth: 143. Regarding gender, the sample composition was 435 (male) and female (435) = 1146. Data collection was conducted in July 2016. Participants were administered the Scale of Physician Empathy Jefferson (JSPE) in the Spanish version for medical students (S). Before being applied, the JSPE was subject to the discretion of judges in order to verify cultural and content validity. Results: In “Academic Years”, results were significant, not being so for “Gender” and interaction. It was observed that the average decreased until the third year, showing a slight increase in the fourth year, to fall again and increase again in the sixth year. Behavior is similar in both genders and both decline from first to third, showing and a slight increase begins from the fourth year.