NCT05016115

Longitudinal Study of Empathy Levels in Physiotherapy Students

A Four-Year Longitudinal Study of Empathy Levels in Undergraduate Physiotherapy Students

• Status: Completed
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 120 (actual)
• Sponsor: Saglik Bilimleri Universitesi · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 19 Years – 24 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

'Empathy' is a core term of occupations related to health sciences like physiotherapy. In physiotherapy education programs, empathy is necessary to have a successful cooperation with the clients. This study was planned to follow the changes of empathy levels in physiotherapy students of a four-year bachelor program and therefore enhance the curriculum related to the results. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first longitudinal study about empathy levels of students in Turkey. Hypotheses: Empathy levels of the students increase year by year (1). Female students are more empathetic than male ones (2).

Detailed description

Totally 120 physiotherapy students at a non-governmental university in Istanbul participated in this study. The Turkish reworded student version of the Jefferson scale of physician empathy was used. Empathy scores were compared related to study years and gender. Empathy scores relevant to gender were compared using Mann-Whitney U test. The Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance was used for differences among the four study years.

Conditions

• Longitudinal Study of Empathy Levels in Physiotherapy Students

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	survey	The Turkish reworded student version of the Jefferson scale of physician empathy was used. Empathy scores were compared related to study years and gender.

Timeline

• Start date: 2016-09-15
• Primary completion: 2019-12-15
• Completion: 2020-06-15
• First posted: 2021-08-23
• Last updated: 2021-08-23