Psychometry, the Jefferson Medical Empathy Scale and Medical Care in Ecuador

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14482/sun.37.1.150.15

Keywords:

Empathy, Psychometry, Medicine, Doctors

Abstract

Objective: To verify that the factorial structure of the data observed in doctors corres¬ponds with the theoretical factorial structure of empathy. Estimate and compare the levels of empathy in the evaluated medical specialties.

Materials and Methods: The study was carried out in the canton of Cuenca (Ecuador) in 2019. It has a descriptive and cross-sectional design. The sample consisted of 223 physi¬cians who worked in the Public Sector, who voluntarily answered the Jefferson Medical Em¬pathy Scale. Dependent variables: levels of empathy and their dimensions. Independent: gender, level of care, and specialty. Normality and homoscedasticity, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Invariance between groups, trifactorial and one-factor analysis of variance, Stu¬dent’s t and Cohen’s d were estimated. The level of significance was ?? .05.

Results: An adequate internal consistency is observed, the three-dimensional model of the original instrument is confirmed. There are no differences between genders (p> .05), but there are between types of care and between specialties (p <.05).

Conclusion: The observed data have the theoretical factorial structure associated with the instrument used to measure empathy. The multigroup analysis makes it possible to assume factorial invariance of empathy between the genders without being able to specify a model acording to types of patient care. The levels of global empathy were higher in primary care compared to hospital care and higher in the specialties of Pediatrics and Family Medicine (united).

Author Biographies

Víctor Patricio Díaz-Narváez, Universidad Andres Bello. Santiago. Chile.

Profesor Investigador. Departamento de Investigaciones. Facultad de Odontología. Universidad Andres Bello. Santiago. Chile. victor.diaz@unab.cl; vicpadina@gmail.com.

 

Yolanda Dávila Pontón, Universidad del Azuay

Profesora. Facultad de Medicina, Universidad del Azuay, Cuenca, Ecuador.
ydavila@uazuay.edu.ec.

Fray Martínez Reyes, Universidad del Azuay

Ph.D. Profesor Investigador. Facultad de Medicina, Universidad del Azuay, Cuenca,
Ecuador. fmartinez@uazuay.edu.ec.

Aracelis Calzadilla Núñez, Universidad Bernardo OHiggins y Universidad Autónoma de Chile.

MD. Profesora Investigadora. Facultad de Salud. Universidad Bernardo OHiggins,
Chile y Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud. Universidad Autónoma de Chile. Chile.
araceliscalza@gmail.com

Ximena Vélez Calvo, Universidad del Azuay.

Ph.D. Profesora Investigadora. Facultad de Filosofía, Letras y Ciencias de la Educación.
Universidad del Azuay. Cuenca. Ecuador. xvelez@uazuay.edu.ec.

Alejandro Reyes Reyes, Universidad Santo Tomás. Concepción.

Profesor Investigador. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Comunicaciones, Universidad
Santo Tomás, Chile. areyesr@santotomas.cl.

Pilar Torres Martínez, Universidad San Sebastián. Concepción

DDS. Profesora Investigadora. Facultad de Odontología. Universidad San Sebastián.
Concepción. Chile. pilar.torres@uss.cl.

Patricia Díaz Calzadilla, Universidad Autónoma de Chile

Estudiante. Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud. Carrera de Medicina. Universidad Autónoma de Chile. Chile. pattita.ary@gmail.com

Published

2022-01-19

How to Cite

Díaz-Narváez, V. P., Dávila Pontón, Y., Martínez Reyes, F., Calzadilla Núñez, A., Vélez Calvo, X., Reyes Reyes, A., Torres Martínez, P., & Díaz Calzadilla, P. (2022). Psychometry, the Jefferson Medical Empathy Scale and Medical Care in Ecuador. Salud Uninorte, 37(1), 96–111. https://doi.org/10.14482/sun.37.1.150.15

Issue

Section

Original Article

Most read articles by the same author(s)

<< < 1 2 3 > >>