Longitudinal Study of Empathy Levels in Physiotherapy Students

Completed

• Conditions: Longitudinal Study of Empathy Levels in Physiotherapy Students
• Interventions: Behavioral: survey

• Registration Number: NCT05016115
• Lead Sponsor: Saglik Bilimleri Universitesi

Brief Summary

'Empathy' is a core term of occupations related to health sciences like physiotherapy. In physiotherapy education programs, empathy is necessary to have a successful cooperation with the clients. This study was planned to follow the changes of empathy levels in physiotherapy students of a four-year bachelor program and therefore enhance the curriculum related to the results. To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first longitudinal study about empathy levels of students in Turkey. Hypotheses: Empathy levels of the students increase year by year (1). Female students are more empathetic than male ones (2).

Detailed Description

Totally 120 physiotherapy students at a non-governmental university in Istanbul participated in this study. The Turkish reworded student version of the Jefferson scale of physician empathy was used. Empathy scores were compared related to study years and gender. Empathy scores relevant to gender were compared using Mann-Whitney U test. The Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance was used for differences among the four study years.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2016-09-15
• Primary Completion: 2019-12-15
• Study Completion: 2020-06-15
• Study First Submitted: 2021-07-22
• Status Verified: 2021-08
• Study First Submitted QC: 2021-08-15
• Last Update Submitted: 2021-08-15
• Study First Posted: 2021-08-23
• Last Update Posted: 2021-08-23

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 120

Inclusion Criteria

• attending the first through fourth year of physiotherapy department
• being willing to participate in the study

Exclusion Criteria

do not continue in physiotherapy department

Study & Design

• Study Type: OBSERVATIONAL
• Study Design: Not specified

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
physiotherapy students	survey	Totally 120 physiotherapy students at a non-governmental university in Istanbul participated in this study.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Empathy levels of the students	5 minutes	It was measured if the empathy levels of the students increase year by year

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Empathy levels of female students	5 minutes	It was measured if female students are more empathetic than male ones