Empathy in Professors and Students of a School of Dentistry in the Caribbean

Objective: To estimate and compare the levels of empathy between undergraduate dentistry students and professors at a university in the Dominican Republic. Material and Methods: Cross-sectional and descriptive study. The studied population consisted of two groups. The first: students of the Dentistry Career (N=520; n=335: 64.42% of total students) were distributed in two areas, basic-preclinical and clinical, while the second group corresponded of teachers who work in both areas (N=92; n=56; 60.87% of all teachers). The total sample was n = 391. The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (S-Version) was used. Reliability was estimated using Cronbach's alpha and intraclass correlation coefficient, descriptive statistics, two-way analysis of variance, Tukey's test, effect size, and power of the test. Significance level: alpha <= 0.05 and beta <= 0.20. Results: The empathy and dimension values were, in general, higher in the professors of the clinical area in relation to the other areas studied, with the exception of the compassionate care dimension. Conclusion: The finding that clinical teachers have a greater value of empathy is potentially an advantage for training students, especially in the clinical area.

Automated summary

This study aimed to compare the levels of empathy between undergraduate dentistry students and professors at a university in the Dominican Republic. The results showed that professors in the clinical area generally had higher levels of empathy and dimension values, which potentially benefit the training of students.