Empathy among health science undergraduates toward the diagnosis of chronic pain: An experimental study

Abstract

Objectives: To analyse the empathetic response of future health professionals toward people diagnosed with chronic pain differentiated by the degree of visibility and credibility of symptoms.

Methods: A total of 203 undergraduates performed an experimental task using vignettes depicting different diagnoses of chronic pain and completed questionnaires measuring dispositional and situational empathy. A MANCOVA analysis was conducted.

Results: The main effects of chronic pain diagnoses did not significantly affect situational empathy (p = .587, η² = 0.007, d = 0.229). The dispositional empathy variables perspective-taking and personal distress affected the situational empathy scores (p = .002, η² = 0.072, d = 0.906, and p = .043, η² = 0.032, d = 0.547, respectively).

Conclusions: It would seem appropriate to foster intra-individual empathy factors among health science undergraduates such that they can more readily understand the process of individual adaptation to chronic pain and thus manage it more effectively.

Practice implications: It would be useful for dispositional empathy to form part of the transversal competences of the training programmes of future health professionals from the beginning of their studies.