Empathy Profile of Students and Faculty: Implications to the Care Giving Profession of Dentistry

Abstract

This descriptive study sought to determine the empathy profile of the College of Dentistry, University of the Philippines Manila. One hundred twenty seven students of the pre-clinical and clinical dentistry proper and 35 faculty members participated in the study. To determine the empathy profile, two instruments were used: the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) by Davis and a set of Non-verbal sensitivity or decoding tests. Variability in the empathy profile points to differences in gender, and their level or status at the College – pre- clinical student, clinicians and faculty. Female subjects generally scored higher than the males in the empathy tests. The dispositional empathy scores of the respondents are within the normative values set by studies made by Davis (1994). The study population scored slightly higher than the normative values in the Perspective Taking and Personal Distress scale. Findings of this study concurs with literature of the positive relationship between the Fantasy Scale and Perspective taking subtests of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index to Empathic Concern and an inverse relationship between Perspective Taking and Personal Distress. According to level of experience, the preclinical students obtained the highest scores in the Fantasy Scale and Personal Distress, while the faculty had the highest Perspective Taking scores. The Music and Design subtest of the Non- verbal sensitivity test decreased with age. The faculty had the highest Stories scores reflecting on their abilities for language-mediated mode of arousal.

Key words: empathy, non-verbal sensitivity, empathic concern, perspective taking, personal distress, fantasy scale