Self-assessed affective and cognitive empathy and it’s predictors among medical students in a private institution in Malaysia

Background: Empathy is considered a vital social and interpersonal skill that allows people to communicate their needs, wants, and experiences with one another. It also acts as an emotional bridge to encourage prosocial behaviour. The study aimed to assess the level of affective empathy and cognitive empathy of medical students and the predictors that influence the varying degrees of each type of empathy among medical students in a private medical institution in Malaysia.Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted in 2024. The respondents were recruited by convenience sampling method and data was collected with online questionnaires. The questionnaire included demographic variables and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Descriptive and inferential analyses were conducted by using SPSS (version 29) and P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: A total of 154 students participated in this study. The association between the level of affective, cognitive, total empathy and factors such as gender and previous exposure to empathy workshops/talks were statistically significant (P < 0.05). Age, ethnicity, nationality, year of study, family income, and number of siblings were deemed not significant in regard to the level of empathy.Conclusion: From this study, it is evident that women have higher levels of affective, cognitive, and total empathy compared to men. Moreover, those who have had previous exposure to empathy-related workshops/talks also cause an individual’s levels of empathy to be higher.