The role of the emotive, moral, and cognitive components for the prediction of medical students' empathic behavior in an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE)

Objectives: Investigate whether medical students' emotive abilities, attitudes, and cognitive empathic professional abilities predict empathic behavior in an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Methods: Linear and multiple regressions were used to test concurrent validity between Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE-S), Situational Judgement Test (SJT-expert-based score (SJT-ES), SJT-theory-based score (SJT-TS)) and empathic behavior in an OSCE measured by Berlin Global Rating (BGR) and Verona Coding Definitions for Emotion Sequences (VR-CoDES). Results: Highest amounts of explained variance of empathic behavior measured by VR-CoDES were found for the SJT-ES (R-2 = 0.125) and SJT-TS (R2 = 0.131). JSPE-S (R-2 = 0.11) and SJT-ES (R-2 = 0.10) explained the highest amount of variance in empathic behavior as measured by BGR. Stepwise multiple regression improved the model for BGR by including SJT-ES and JSPE-S, explaining 16.2% of variance. Conclusions: The instrument measuring the emotive component (IRI) did not significantly predict empathic behavior, whereas instruments measuring moral (JSPE-S) and cognitive components (SJT) significantly predicted empathic behavior. However, the explained variance was small. Practice implications: The instrument measuring the emotive component (IRI) did not significantly predict empathic behavior, whereas instruments measuring moral (JSPE-S) and cognitive components (SJT) significantly predicted empathic behavior. However, the explained variance was small. In a longitudinal assessment program, triangulation of different instruments assessing empathy offers a rich perspective of learner's empathic abilities. Empathy training should include the acquisition of knowledge, attitudes, and behavior to support learner's empathic behaviors.

Automated summary

This study found that instruments measuring emotional abilities did not significantly predict empathic behavior, while instruments measuring moral and cognitive components did. However, the explained variance was small. Therefore, empathy training should focus on acquiring knowledge, attitudes, and behavior to support empathic behaviors.