A study of the effect of a visual arts-based program on the scores of Jefferson scale for physician empathy

BMC Medical Education

Jen-Hung Yang²  Kuang-Tao Yang¹ 

[1] Center for Medical Humanities and Department of Nuclear Medicine, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua 50012, Taiwan;School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, and Department of Dermatology, Tzu Chi General Hospital, Hualien 97004, Taiwan

关键词: ACGME;    Medical humanities;    Empathy;    Jefferson scale for physician empathy;    Visual arts;   

Others  :  1138593
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6920-13-142

 received in 2013-04-16, accepted in 2013-10-21,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

The effect of visual arts interventions on development of empathy has not been quantitatively investigated. A study was conducted on the effect of a visual arts-based program on the scores of the Jefferson Scale for Physician Empathy (JSPE).

Methods

A total of 110 clerks (n = 92) and first-year postgraduate residents (PGY1s) (n = 18) participating in the program were recruited into this study. The 4-hr program covered the subjects of learning to interpret paintings, interpreting paintings relating to medicine, illness and human suffering, the related-topics of humanitarianism and the other humanities fields and values and meaning. The JSPE was completed at the beginning (pretest) and the end (posttest) of the program.

Results

There was no significant difference between the pretest and posttest JSPE scores. The average of the scores for the pretest was lower in the subgroup of PGY1s than the subgroup of clerks (p = 0.0358). An increased but not significantly mean posttest JESPE score was noted for the subgroup of PGY1s. Neither the females nor the males had higher posttest JSPE scores than the pretest scores.

Conclusions

Although using a structured visual arts-based program as an intervention may be useful to enhance medical students’ empathy, our results failed to show a positive effect on the JSPE Scores for a group of clerks and PGY1s. This suggests that further experimental studies are needed if quantitative evaluation of the effectiveness of visual-arts based programs on empathy is to be investigated.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Yang and Yang; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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