Association between dispositional empathy and self-other distinction in Irish and Belgian medical students: a cross-sectional analysis
Objective Physicians’ cognitive empathy is associated with improved diagnosis and better patient outcomes. The relationship between self-reported and performance-based measures of cognitive empathic processes is unclear.Design Cross-sectional analysis of the association between medical students’ emp...
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| Format: | Article |
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BMJ Publishing Group
2021-09-01
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| Series: | BMJ Open |
| Online Access: | https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/9/e048597.full |
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| author | Deirdre Bennett Colm O'Tuathaigh Henryk Bukowski Nor Faizaah Ahmad Kamal Gabriella Rizzo |
| author_facet | Deirdre Bennett Colm O'Tuathaigh Henryk Bukowski Nor Faizaah Ahmad Kamal Gabriella Rizzo |
| author_sort | Deirdre Bennett |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Objective Physicians’ cognitive empathy is associated with improved diagnosis and better patient outcomes. The relationship between self-reported and performance-based measures of cognitive empathic processes is unclear.Design Cross-sectional analysis of the association between medical students’ empathy scale scores and their empathic performance in a visuospatial perspective-taking (VPT) task.Participants Undergraduate medical students across two European medical schools (n=194).Primary and secondary outcome measures Two self-report empathy and one performance-based perspective-taking outcome: Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE); Empathy Quotient (EQ); Samson’s level-1 VPT task.Results Higher scores on the ‘standing in patient’s shoes’ subscale of the JSPE were associated with a lower congruency effect (as well as lower egocentric and altercentric biases) in the VPT (B=−0.007, 95% CI=−0.013 to 0.002, p<0.05), which reflects an association with better capacity to manage conflicting self-other perspectives, also known as self-other distinction. Lower egocentric bias was also associated with higher scores on the ‘social skills’ EQ subscale (B=−10.17, 95% CI=−17.98 to 2.36, p<0.05). Additionally, selection of a ‘technique-oriented’ clinical specialty preference was associated with a higher self-perspective advantage in the VPT, reflecting greater attentional priority given to the self-perspective.Conclusions We show that self-assessment scores are associated with selected performance-based indices of perspective taking, providing a more fine-grained analysis of the cognitive domain of empathy assessed in medical student empathy scales. This analysis allows us to generate new critical hypotheses about the reasons why only certain self-report empathy measures (or their subscales) are associated with physicians’ observed empathic ability. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-501dc9aded17426fb035146a0bd5d2ef |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2044-6055 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2021-09-01 |
| publisher | BMJ Publishing Group |
| record_format | Article |
| series | BMJ Open |
| spelling | doaj-art-501dc9aded17426fb035146a0bd5d2ef2025-08-20T02:17:59ZengBMJ Publishing GroupBMJ Open2044-60552021-09-0111910.1136/bmjopen-2020-048597Association between dispositional empathy and self-other distinction in Irish and Belgian medical students: a cross-sectional analysisDeirdre Bennett0Colm O'Tuathaigh1Henryk Bukowski2Nor Faizaah Ahmad Kamal3Gabriella Rizzo4Medical Education Unit, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland12 School of Medicine, University College Cork National University of Ireland, Cork, IrelandPsychological Sciences Research Institute, Universite catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Walloon Brabant, BelgiumMedical Education Unit, School of Medicine, University College Cork, Cork, IrelandDepartment of Medicine, Cork University Hospital, Cork, IrelandObjective Physicians’ cognitive empathy is associated with improved diagnosis and better patient outcomes. The relationship between self-reported and performance-based measures of cognitive empathic processes is unclear.Design Cross-sectional analysis of the association between medical students’ empathy scale scores and their empathic performance in a visuospatial perspective-taking (VPT) task.Participants Undergraduate medical students across two European medical schools (n=194).Primary and secondary outcome measures Two self-report empathy and one performance-based perspective-taking outcome: Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE); Empathy Quotient (EQ); Samson’s level-1 VPT task.Results Higher scores on the ‘standing in patient’s shoes’ subscale of the JSPE were associated with a lower congruency effect (as well as lower egocentric and altercentric biases) in the VPT (B=−0.007, 95% CI=−0.013 to 0.002, p<0.05), which reflects an association with better capacity to manage conflicting self-other perspectives, also known as self-other distinction. Lower egocentric bias was also associated with higher scores on the ‘social skills’ EQ subscale (B=−10.17, 95% CI=−17.98 to 2.36, p<0.05). Additionally, selection of a ‘technique-oriented’ clinical specialty preference was associated with a higher self-perspective advantage in the VPT, reflecting greater attentional priority given to the self-perspective.Conclusions We show that self-assessment scores are associated with selected performance-based indices of perspective taking, providing a more fine-grained analysis of the cognitive domain of empathy assessed in medical student empathy scales. This analysis allows us to generate new critical hypotheses about the reasons why only certain self-report empathy measures (or their subscales) are associated with physicians’ observed empathic ability.https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/9/e048597.full |
| spellingShingle | Deirdre Bennett Colm O'Tuathaigh Henryk Bukowski Nor Faizaah Ahmad Kamal Gabriella Rizzo Association between dispositional empathy and self-other distinction in Irish and Belgian medical students: a cross-sectional analysis BMJ Open |
| title | Association between dispositional empathy and self-other distinction in Irish and Belgian medical students: a cross-sectional analysis |
| title_full | Association between dispositional empathy and self-other distinction in Irish and Belgian medical students: a cross-sectional analysis |
| title_fullStr | Association between dispositional empathy and self-other distinction in Irish and Belgian medical students: a cross-sectional analysis |
| title_full_unstemmed | Association between dispositional empathy and self-other distinction in Irish and Belgian medical students: a cross-sectional analysis |
| title_short | Association between dispositional empathy and self-other distinction in Irish and Belgian medical students: a cross-sectional analysis |
| title_sort | association between dispositional empathy and self other distinction in irish and belgian medical students a cross sectional analysis |
| url | https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/9/e048597.full |
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