Author(s)

Víctor Patricio Díaz-Narváez^1,2*, Ana María Erazo Coronado³, Jorge Luis Bilbao⁴, Farith González⁵, Mariela Padilla⁶, Madeline Howard⁷, Guadalupe Silva⁸, Joel Arboleda⁸, Mirian Bullen⁹, Robert Utsman⁶, Elizabeth Fajardo¹⁰, Luz Marina Alonso¹¹, Marcos Cervantes¹²

¹Facultad de Odontología, Universidad San Sebastián, Santiago, Chile.
²Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
³Universidad Metropolitana, Barranquilla, Colombia.
⁴Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Libre Seccional Barranquilla y Fundación Universitaria San Martín Sede Puerto Colombia, Barranquilla, Colombia.
⁵Facultad de Odontología, Universidad de Cartagena, Cartagena, Colombia.
⁶Universidad Latinoamericana de Ciencia y Tecnología, San José, Costa Rica.
⁷Facultad de Odontología, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica.
⁸Universidad Central del Este, San Pedro de Macorís, República Dominicana.
⁹Facultad de Odontología, Universidad de Panamá, Ciudad de Panamá, República de Panamá.
¹⁰Faculty of Health Sciences, Universidad del Tolima, Ibagué, Colombia.
¹¹División de Salud, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia.
¹²Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia.

Objective: The aim of this study is to check whether there are differences in the distribution of empathy levels in dental students from nine faculties of dentistry Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Dominican Republic. Methods: The levels of empathy and matrices of empathy construct matrices are estimated dental students by using the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy, the Spanish version for students (S version) culturally validated in Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Dominican Republic measured by arbitrator criteria. Cronbach α is estimated. Data of empathic orientation of the studied factors between faculties are analyzed and compared by ANOVA and Duncan test and matrices of empathy construct using discriminant analysis. Results: We find that there are differences in levels of empathy between universities, courses, gender and interaction between the Dental Faculty (University) and Course. The comparison between matrices shows unexplained variances and differences observed between the levels of empathy in student populations. Conclusions: Variability in empathy is observed in the studied factors and among student populations. The variability is an empirical finding, but is not possible in this work, to explain why.

Empathy, Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE), Levels of Empathy

Díaz-Narváez, V. , Coronado, A. , Bilbao, J. , González, F. , Padilla, M. , Howard, M. , Silva, G. , Arboleda, J. , Bullen, M. , Utsman, R. , Fajardo, E. , Alonso, L. and Cervantes, M. (2015) Empathy Levels of Dental Students of Central America and the Caribbean. Health, 7, 1678-1686. doi: 10.4236/health.2015.712182.