Aims: Students on GP rotations are exposed to several aligned clinical and teaching activities that encourage a patient-centred approach. Empathy and coping strategies are integral to managing confronting patient situations that may differ from students' life experiences. However, it is suggested that empathy declines during medical school, especially in the clinical practice phase of training. Our aim was to measure empathy changes in final year medical students on a general practice placement which included an interview with a carer of a patient with a long-term disability.
Methods: Ninety-three students volunteered in a pre/post-test study. They completed questionnaires at pre- to index Coping Style (Brief COPE), and pre- to post- measures of Empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index). A wait-list comparison group of students who undertook an emergency medicine placement was included to strengthen the study design. Data were analysed using mixed betweenwithin ANOVAs with Time (pre- vs. post- general practice placement) as the within-group variable and Coping Style (low vs. high) as the between-group variable. Analyses of Coping Styles were conducted separately (Active Coping, Cognitive Coping, Dysfunctional Coping).
Results: The main significant finding for those on the general practice placement (n = 71), was an interaction between the types of coping styles deployed and the time. Those lower in active coping reported lower empathy at post- relative to pre- general practice placement (p = .017), whereas those higher in active coping reported no decline in empathy pre- to post (F < 1).
Conclusion: Results suggest that active coping mechanisms may help maintain empathy. However students with lower active functional coping skills continue to show declining empathy and may even utilise more dysfunctional coping strategies within their GP placement. This has implications for curriculum development and future directions for teaching empathy and coping. Research is needed to ascertain how to maintain empathy in students with lower active functional coping skills