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. 2022 Jan 3;22(1):2.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-021-03080-1.

Empathy, personality traits, and emotional management in 2nd and 4th-year dentistry students: a single-center study

Christian Lermen  1 , Willi Wetzel  2 , Vanessa Britz  3 , Jasmina Sterz  4 , Wolf O Bechstein  1 , Teresa Schreckenbach  5
Affiliations

Empathy, personality traits, and emotional management in 2nd and 4th-year dentistry students: a single-center study

Christian Lermen et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: Patients fearing dental interventions are at risk of delaying or skipping much-needed treatments. Empathic communication could lead to a higher rate of compliance from patients within this group. Empathy, the big five personality traits, and emotion management abilities are all known to influence the quality of communication between dentists and patients. This study was conducted to analyze whether there is a correlation between these factors in dentistry students.

Methods: Dentistry students in their 2nd and 4th year of study were asked to complete questionnaires assessing empathy, emotion management, and personality traits. Out of a total of 148 eligible participants, 53 students (34%) volunteered to participate. For empathy, the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (students' version; JSPE-S) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) were used. Personality traits were assessed using the Short Big Five Inventory (BFI-s), and the Situational Test of Emotional Management (STEM) to measure emotional management ability.

Results: Higher scores for emotion management were significantly correlated with the female gender (p ≤ 0.005) and with higher scores in openness (p ≤ 0.05). Students with higher scores in openness also achieved higher scores on the IRI subscales: Perspective taking (p ≤ 0.05), Fantasy (p ≤ 0.01), Empathic concern (p ≤ 0.05), and Personal distress (p ≤ 0.05). For JSPE-S, no correlation with emotion management and personality traits was found.

Conclusion: Empathy and emotion management might not be significantly related in dentistry students. Regarding personality traits, students who scored higher on openness also indicated higher abilities in emotion management. These findings should be taken into consideration when planning communication courses for dentistry students, as it might be possible to independently train empathy and emotion management as part of emotional intelligence.

Keywords: Dental students; Emotional intelligence; Empathy; Personality inventory.

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Conflict of interest statement

CL, WW, VB, JS and TS declare, that they have nothing to disclosure.

WB reports Consulting fees from Novartis, Payment or honoraria for lectures, presentations, speakers bureaus, manuscript writing or educational events from Astellas, Charité, Chiesi, Deutscher Ärzteverlag, Else-Kröner-Stiftung, European Society of Organ Transplantation (ESOT), Falk Foundation, Gesundheit Österreich GmbH, GORE Deutschland, Medac GmbH, MCI Academy, Novartis, Sanofi, Sanofi-Genzyme and Sirtex. He reports support for attending meetings and/or travel from Astellas, Aye Congresse GmbH, Charité, Chiesi, Deutscher Ärzteverlag, Deutscher Krebskongress, GORE Deutschland, Hopscotch Paris, Interplan, MCE, Medupdate GmbH, Novartis and Springer Verlag, Participation on a Data Safety Monitoring Board or Advisory Board from Novartis, and Leadership or fiduciary role in other board, society, committee or advocacy group, unpaid as Past President, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Allgemein und Viszeralchirurgie (DGAV).

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