Abstract
Background Spirituality has religious and nonreligious dimensions and is often linked to well-being, positive emotions, connection and meaning in life. Both empathy and resilience are important in medical training and future professional practice since they are considered core skills related to professionalism and patient care. Our study aimed to understand the relationships among spirituality, resilience, and empathy in medical students. We also aimed to determine whether there are differences by gender and between medical students in different years of a medical program.Methods Medical students (n = 1370) from six medical schools completed questionnaires to assess empathy (Jefferson Empathy Scale and Davis Multidimensional Interpersonal Reactivity Scale) and resilience (Wagnild & Young Scale) and to rate their spirituality.Results Medical students with high spirituality showed higher scores for both resilience and empathy (p < 0.001). In addition, we observed higher levels of both spirituality and empathy, but not resilience, in female medical students than in male medical students. In contrast, we did not detect significant differences in spirituality, empathy, or resilience between students in different years of medical school.Conclusion There was a strong association between high levels of spirituality and higher scores for both empathy and resilience in medical students. Spirituality, empathy and resilience have similar value for students in different years of a medical program.