Empathic abilities of medical university students: analysis of theoretical and empirical research

Abstract

Introduction. The article examines the empathic abilities of students in the process of studying at a medical university. The concept of "empathy" is analyzed, it is understood as a professionally significant property (quality) of a doctor's personality. The variety of ideas about the empathic abilities of the personality of future medical workers is considered in order to generalize knowledge about this phenomenon. The authors have diagnosed the peculiarities of the empathic abilities of future doctors among students studying at a medical university. The results of a theoretical and empirical study of the empathic abilities of medical students are presented. The empirical sample was made up of 103 students of the I.P. Pavlov Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Ryazan State Medical University of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation in the specialty 31.05.01 "Medical business". The research problem is the study of students' empathic abilities in the process of studying at a medical university to create a program for the development of their empathic abilities. The purpose of the study is a theoretical and methodological analysis of the phenomenon of empathy in domestic and foreign literature, the study of empathic abilities of a person, diagnostics of the level of development of empathic abilities of students of 1-5 courses of medical university.Materials and Methods. The following methods were used in the study: observation and testing. Methods: "Diagnostics of empathy level" (V. V. Boyko); "Emotional response scale" (A. Mehrabyan and N. Epstein); "Diagnostics of emotional intelligence" (N. Hall). The results were processed using mathematical statistics methods (Mann–Whitney U-test, correlation analysis, STATISTIKA 10.0).Results. It was found that the empathic abilities of students in the process of studying at a medical university in the 1st year are higher than in the 5th year. Students of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years were diagnosed with an average level of empathic abilities in the process of studying at a medical university. The results of theoretical and empirical research indicate the need to develop the empathic abilities of future medical professionals in the process of studying at a university.Discussion and Conclusions. Our theoretical and empirical research has shown that students in the process of studying at a medical university may not have a stable level of empathic abilities depending on the course of study. The empathic abilities of medical university students have their own characteristics and correspond to the requirements for the professional and personal competencies of a future doctor.