ArticleBMJ open2021
Association between dispositional empathy and self-other distinction in Irish and Belgian medical students: a cross-sectional analysis.
Article in BMJ open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Can ketamine and other glutamate receptor modulators be considered entactogens?Psychiatry research · 2025Pooled it
- Implicit intervention approach for empathy: exploring the combined effects of empathic concern and visual perspective-taking.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
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Abstract
objectivePhysicians' cognitive empathy is associated with improved diagnosis and better patient outcomes. The relationship between self-reported and performance-based measures of cognitive empathic processes is unclear.
designCross-sectional analysis of the association between medical students' empathy scale scores and their empathic performance in a visuospatial perspective-taking (VPT) task.
participantsUndergraduate medical students across two European medical schools (n=194). PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Two self-report empathy and one performance-based perspective-taking outcome: Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE); Empathy Quotient (EQ); Samson's level-1 VPT task.
resultsHigher scores on the 'standing in patient's shoes' subscale of the JSPE were associated with a lower congruency effect (as well as lower egocentric and altercentric biases) in the VPT (B=-0.007, 95% CI=-0.013 to 0.002, p<0.05), which reflects an association with better capacity to manage conflicting self-other perspectives, also known as self-other distinction. Lower egocentric bias was also associated with higher scores on the 'social skills' EQ subscale (B=-10.17, 95% CI=-17.98 to 2.36, p<0.05). Additionally, selection of a 'technique-oriented' clinical specialty preference was associated with a higher self-perspective advantage in the VPT, reflecting greater attentional priority given to the self-perspective.
conclusionsWe show that self-assessment scores are associated with selected performance-based indices of perspective taking, providing a more fine-grained analysis of the cognitive domain of empathy assessed in medical student empathy scales. This analysis allows us to generate new critical hypotheses about the reasons why only certain self-report empathy measures (or their subscales) are associated with physicians' observed empathic ability.
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