Personality characteristics of empathy profiles - practical implications for education of medicine students.

BACKGROUND: Empathy plays the key role in the doctor - patient relationship. The research of empathy determinants plays an important role in formulating practical guidelines for the education of medical students. The aim of this study was to analyse personality characteristics of empathy profiles among students of medicine, with consideration of chief personality factors and their subdimensions according to the FFM model. METHODS: During workshops in Clinical Psychological Skills, 153 students (M = 57, F = 96; mean age 23 years) analysed their psychological functioning styles by examining their personality profiles and empathy indicators. Empathic Sensitiveness Scale (ESS) and Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) were applied for this purpose. The analyses of empathy indicators were presented by means of cluster analysis. Variance analysis with post hoc Tukey-b test was performed for differences between clusters and to differentiate between personality factors and their components in empathy clusters. This study was approved by the Jagiellonian University Bioethics Committee (approval number: 1072.6120.175.2018 date: 28.06.2018). RESULTS: The first cluster included students who presented high empathetic concern for others, understood their perspective and needs characterised by medium level of Neuroticism, high levels of other dimensions The second group included students who could understand others very well, yet with lower tendency to react emotionally to suffering, characterised by medium level of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, high Conscientiousness and low Agreeableness. The third cluster included students who react strongly to painful and unpleasant reactions of others, characterised by high Neuroticism and Agreeableness, low Extraversion. CONCLUSIONS: Each empathy profile is manifested in relations with patients in a specific way. Medical education in empathy holds great potential to reduce anxiety, stress, and burnout associated with the medical profession. Discussion of individual results with students, gives an opportunity to talk about how their empathy and personality characteristics may influence their everyday medical practice.

Differences in personality related determinants of empathetic sensibility in female and male students of medicine.

The issues of personality and its relations with the level of empathetic sensibility of medical doctors are broadly discussed in the literature. The aim of this study was an assessment of personality related predictors of empathy indicators in female and male students of medicine with consideration of gender differences. Methods applied were Empathic Sensitiveness Scale (ESS) and Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). The study included 153 participants, who were students of the fifth year of medical studies. Students filled in questionnaires during workshops in clinical psychological skills. Participation in the study was voluntary and anonymous. The statistical analysis was performed using Statistica 13 PL and PS IMAGO PRO (SPSS). Linear regression analysis with the interaction component was performed to explore the relationship between personality factors and gender and their interaction with the variable dependent level of empathy. The analysis showed that Extraversion, Openness and Agreeableness are associated with the level of Empathic Concern. Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness are associated with the level of Personal Distress. Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness are associated with the level of Perspective-taking. The regression analysis with the interactive component showed that there is no relationship between gender and the level of empathy, therefore the interactions were insignificant. Empathetic sensibility is related to personality dimensions of the students of medicine. Although there has been no interaction among chief personality dimensions, empathy indicators and gender, detailed analysis of personality dimensions' components has shown differences between men and women.