SynthesisMedical education online2025
Teaching cognitive and affective empathy in medicine: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Synthesis in Medical education online, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A systematic review identifying effective teaching methods and their combinations for increasing empathy in physicians: pairwise and network meta-analysis.BMC medical education · 2025Pooled it
- Teaching empathy in Balint groups.The Libyan journal of medicine · 2026Article
- Understanding the neuroscience of communicating serious news.Intensive care medicine · 2026Article
- Educational and Professional Development Interventions to Strengthen Empathy, Compassion, and Relational Care Among Healthcare Professionals: A Systematic Review.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2026Review
- Changes in Self-Reported Empathy After a Basic Medical Communication Course Among Premedical Students: Single-Group Longitudinal Study.JMIR medical education · 2026Article
- "I Believe in You": Student Experiences of Faculty Empathy in Health Sciences Education.Advances in medical education and practice · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeEmpathy can be divided into cognitive empathy (CE) and affective empathy (AE). CE is defined as the accurate understanding and appropriate response to others' thoughts whereas AE is defined as the accurate understanding and appropriate response to others' emotions. The overall purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to assess the effectiveness of empathy interventions in physicians and physicians-in-training in increasing CE and AE. Specifically, we are interested in examining whether specific teaching methods and intervention designs may contribute to greater empathy intervention effectiveness for CE and AE outcomes.
methodStudies searched included randomized controlled trials conducted between 1971 to 2022 examining empathy interventions for medical students and physicians. Thirty-six studies, consisting of 3,833 participants, met the inclusion criteria. Data were analysed using random-effects pairwise meta-analysis.
resultsEmpathy interventions have moderate effect sizes on both CE [
conclusionsThere is evidence of key differences, and similarities, in how CE and AE is taught to medical students and professionals; however, the small number and high level of heterogeneity in studies makes this difficult to confirm. Research in this field will benefit from investigators standardizing teaching and research methods across studies.
Indexed as
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.