Empathy, Burnout and Quality of Life among Medical Students of Ardabil University of Medical Sciences

Even though clinical empathy is one of the clinical competencies of medical students and there is a high emphasis on teaching and learning, it decreases during medical education. This study investigated the relationship between burnout, quality of life and clinical empathy in medical students.

this exploratory cross-sectional study used the Jefferson empathy questionnaire, WHO quality of life questionnaire and burnout inventory. All three questionnaires are standard, and their validity and reliability have been confirmed in various studies in Iran. The research population was the Ardabil University of Medical Sciences internship medical students, for which the census sampling method was used. Various statistical tests, such as Pearson and spearman correlation, Chi-square, etc., were used for data analysis.

Out of 130 students, 128 (98.4%) completed all of the questionnaires. Data analysis showed that 98% of students suffered from moderate burnout and 2% of them had severe burnout. About 44% of students were satisfied or very satisfied with their health status and 33% of students were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. The mean score of clinical empathy in students was 79.46±9.82. Data analysis showed a statistically significant inverse relationship between quality of life and burnout (p=0.0001).

Considering that the situation of students was not very favorable in terms of all three variables, non-curricular programs seem to be essential for improving student adaptation mechanisms to the job-related situations in medical students and promoting clinical empathy.