Synergy between resilience and empathy in health sciences students: a cross-sectional study

Background: Empathy is considered a key factor in patient satisfaction, treatment adherence, clinical outcomes, and professional fulfillment. Consequently, training health sciences students in empathy has become a priority in universities worldwide. However, empathy-focused interventions have not achieved the desired success due to the complex nature of empathy. Both internal and external factors shape and influence empathy. Resilience has been proposed as one such factor, but the association between these two concepts is poorly understood. This study aims to evaluate the association between different dimensions of resilience and empathy in health science students. Methods: A Cross-sectional analysis evaluated the levels of empathy and resilience in 993 Medical, Nursing, and Dentistry students at Universidad del Norte using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professions Students (JSE-HPS) and the Ecological, Engineering, Adaptation (EEA) Resilience Scale. Data were examined through univariate and multivariate normality analyses and descriptive statistics. To evaluate the theoretical structure of empathy and resilience, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed on the three-dimensional models of each construct. Reliability was established using the Omega coefficient. Finally, structural equation modeling (SEM) with a robust maximum likelihood estimator was applied to analyze the association between resilience and empathy. Results: The normal distribution assumptions were largely met for empathy scale data, its respective dimensions, and individual items. The theoretical model was well-supported for both constructs, and the data suggested acceptable reliability. SEM analysis revealed that the association between empathy and resilience dimensions vary. Ecological resilience was positively correlated with all empathy dimensions while engineering and adaptative resilience were negatively correlated with all three dimensions of empathy. Conclusions: There is no universal effect of resilience on empathy. Designers of empathy-focused educational interventions and researchers should consider the potential differential effects of different dimensions of resilience on different aspects of empathy. In particular, focusing on ecological resilience may create the conditions for achieved empathy to be expressed, while strategies to mitigate the potential negative impact of adaptive resilience on empathy should be further explored.