title: Empathy as related to motivations for medicine in a sample of first-year medical students.
abstract: Professionalism and empathy are crucial in clinical settings. An association would be expected between empathic attitudes and altruistic motivations for a medical education. However, data is scarce in first-year students, and a previous small-scale study did not fully confirm the hypothesis that person-oriented motives would have a strong relationship to empathy. The present study tested this association in a larger sample. 202 first-year medical students (M age = 19.0 yr., SD = 2.7; 67.3% women) were assessed cross-sectionally, using the Vaglum and colleagues' indexes on motives for choosing medicine (security/status, person-orientation, and interest in the natural sciences) and the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy for students. There was a weak association between empathy and person-orientation, but the evidence regarding links between empathy and the three motivation scores was low overall. In this Portuguese sample there was not a clear-cut association between empathy and motivations for medical school.
authors: Department of Mental Health, CEDOC Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, FCM, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. gpereira.sm@fcm.unl.pt
authors: Manuel
authors: M
authors: Gonçalves-Pereira
authors: Bruno
authors: B
authors: Trancas
authors: José
authors: J
authors: Loureiro
authors: Ana
authors: A
authors: Papoila
authors: José Miguel
authors: JM
authors: Caldas-de-Almeida
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002321:Career Choice; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D004645:Empathy / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D011174:Portugal; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult