The course of empathetic capacity during medical education.

• Grant number: 24/04157-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): July 01, 2024
• Effective date (End): June 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Psychiatry
• Principal Investigator: Marcelo Feijó de Mello
• Grantee: Anna Carla Travessa Siervo
• Host Institution: Instituto Israelita de Ensino e Pesquisa Albert Einstein (IIEPAE). Sociedade Beneficente Israelita Brasileira Albert Einstein (SBIBAE). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Rationale: Empathy is a mental function with physiological and psychological mechanisms, which one uses as one seeks to understand and comprehend another's feelings, resulting in internal mimicry. This capacity is vital for life in society and fundamental in healthcare providers. Although we expect empathy and compassion to be pillars of healthcare values, studies suggest that an expressive number of complaints received in healthcare units worldwide refers to patients and their families unsatisfied with the lack of both these essential aspects, emphasizing how a person-centered medicine and its nuances influence the perception of care. Another important observation is that one of the top causes of lawsuits against doctors occurs because of a bad doctor-patient relationship and communication. Global literature describes that medical students start their education with an empathetic capacity that declines over the years in university. This decline makes us question which academic aspects contribute (or lack) to this scenario. If Medicine is losing its most human and Hippocratic characteristics, we must understand why to prevent misplacing the art of healing. However, there are few Brazilian studies aiming in this direction. Intending to observe whether and how medical graduation impacts the empathy of future doctors, this study proposes to analyze two medical universities with different characteristics (FICSAE and EPM) both in a cross-section study and in a longitudinal one during the six years till the degree, starting this year (2024).Objective: To observe and evaluate the empathetic capacity of medical students and whether it changes during graduation. If so, we intend to comprehend which factors contribute to or prevent its decline. Methods: This study is divided into a cross-sectional study and a prospective cohort study. We will apply a validated questionnaire to evaluate the empathic capacity. Also, a sociodemographic-clinical questionnaire will be used to assess sociodemographic, health, and mental health aspects, and also the student's perception of the social and psychological support they receive from their institutions. The students will fill out the questionnaire we send them yearly for six years. We will store the data anonymously using an online software (RedCap). We will analyze the data. Results: We expect to see a decline in empathy; it is more expressive in males who started graduation young and have psychological symptoms. There's also the possibility that some intrinsic and cultural aspects of each university might influence the curve. As for protection factors, we believe that social support initiatives will protagonize.