Empathy Levels of Dental Students of Central America and the Caribbean

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.