To evaluate the extent to which personal well-being may be associated with empathy, while controlling for potential confounders.
Settings/Location:
Residency programs throughout the United States.
Subjects:
A total of 407 medical residents from residencies including general medicine, surgery, specialized and diagnostic medicine participated in this study.
Outcome Measures:
Well-being was measured using the modified existential well-being subscale of the spiritual well-being scale. Empathy was measured using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy.
Results:
Well-being was found to be positively correlated with empathy when adjusted for possible confounders (p < 0.001). In addition to well-being, other factors noted to be statistically significant contributors to higher empathy scores while controlling for the others included age, gender, year in residency, specialty, and work-hours (p < 0.05 for each). After controlling for these factors, a resident's year in residency was not found to be a statistically significant contributor to empathy score.
Conclusions:
In this study, well-being was associated with empathy in medical and surgical residents. Empathy is a fundamental component of physician competency, and its development is an essential aspect of medical training. These findings suggest that efforts to increase well-being may promote empathy among medical residents.
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