Fostering Empathy in Medical Students by "Social Responsibility in Health"

Background Many positive effects of social responsibility topics like volunteerism on students' empathy levels and prevention of social conflicts can be found in the recent literature. In Social Responsibility in Health (SRH) course, stories of people living in different conditions were told to the medical students. They were asked to put themselves in the shoes of people living in difficult conditions and to find solutions for various problems. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of SRH course on the empathy levels of medical students. Methods Between October 2022 and February 2023, 136 medical students from İstanbul Medeniyet University voluntarily participated in this intervention evaluation study. Empathy Assessment Scale with three subscales (social interaction, cognitive behavior, and emotional identification) was applied to the intervention (n = 62) and control (n = 74) groups in the beginning (pretest) and the end (posttest) of the course. Due to normal distribution of the data, t-tests were utilized for statistical analysis. Results Intervention group had significantly higher total empathy (p < .05) and emotional identification (p < .01) mean posttest scores with respect to pretest. There was no significant difference for social interaction and cognitive behavior empathy dimensions in the intervention group between pretest and posttest. Also, all empathy scores at posttest were significantly higher in the intervention than the control group (p < .01). Conclusions SRH course positively affected empathy levels of medical students, especially their emotional identification with others. Including social responsibility-themed courses telling stories of people in difficult situations in the medical curriculum will positively affect the empathic skills of medical students. Trial registration: Not applicable