'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).
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.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
120
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 levels of the students
It was measured if the empathy levels of the students increase year by year
Time frame: 5 minutes
Empathy levels of female students
It was measured if female students are more empathetic than male ones
Time frame: 5 minutes
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