Empathy Levels of Dental Faculty and Students: A Survey Study at an Academic Dental Institution in Chile.

A successful health care provider may be described as a clinician capable of establishing a comprehensive diagnosis including identifying related risk factors. However, an equally important quality a clinician should possess is the ability to understand the experiences and feelings of others to allow better communication for better outcomes. It is likely that faculty empathy levels influence students' ability to demonstrate this attribute. The aim of this study was to assess the levels of empathy of dental faculty members relative to dental students at the Universidad San Sebastian in Chile. Using a cross-sectional design of survey-collected data collected with the Jefferson Scale of Empathy, the authors compared the perceptions of the dental faculty involved in teaching fourth- and fifth-year dental students (n=116) to the perceptions of basic and preclinical students (n=346) and clinical students (n=189). The data were collected in 2016-17. The results showed that the mean faculty scores were higher than that of the students in compassionate care (90.1%) and perspective adoption (89.7%); however, for putting oneself in the other's shoes, the faculty had a lower score (57.8%) than the clinical students (58.2%). Future investigations are needed to understand the impact of faculty empathy scores on students and whether pedagogical interventions can increase empathy scores.

Chilean Dentistry students, levels of empathy and empathic erosion: Necessary evaluation before a planned intervention: Levels of empathy, evaluation and intervention.

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the general empathy levels and the potential for empathic growth in Dentistry students and demonstrate that the empathic erosion model is not med. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Exploratory and cross-sectional study. Population: First- to fifth-year Dentistry students at Universidad San Sebastián, Santiago Campus (Chile). The total student population (N) was 800. The participants completed the Jefferson Scale of Empathy in its Spanish version for medical students, validated and adapted in Chile. A two-factor analysis of variance (model III) was applied to find differences in the means between academic years, between genders, and in the interaction between these two factors. The data were described using simple arithmetic graphs and then processed with SPSS 22.0. The total growth potential was estimated. RESULTS: The Sample (n) consisted of 534 students (66.88% of the population studied, 2016). Differences were found between academic years and genders in general empathy and some of its components. CONCLUSION: The behavior of empathy levels is not in line with the concept of empathic erosion. This suggests that empathic erosion is a particular and not a general phenomenon. There exists a considerable growth potential for empathy and its components.