Ethical Dilemmas and Empathy Towards Patient Care among Dental Students in Telangana State - A Cross-Sectional Study

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the association between Ethical dilemmas and Empathy among dental house surgeons of Telangana state. Methodology: A Cross-sectional study was conducted among House surgeons of 7 dental institutions in Telangana state in month of September 2022. A 26-item standardized closed ended questionnaire was administered to study participants which comprise of two domains – dilemmas and empathy. Dilemmas were presented as 6-clinical case scenarios depicting various principles of ethics while Empathy was measured using the HPS-version of Jeferson scale questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to the study participants and collected on the same day. Descriptives and chi-square test was done to determine the association between dilemmas and levels of empathy. Results: A total of 382 house surgeons, 81.4% were females with mean age of 23.23 ± 1.098. Participants showed high respect for autonomy, with 84.6% in scenario 1 and 64.5% in scenario 2. However, respect for non-maleficence was lower which is about 31.7% & 48.1% in scenarios 3 & 4 respectively. Respect for principle of beneficence was 22% while truthfulness was 74.3%. Among the study participants, 46.3% exhibited moderate level of empathy. There exists no association between dilemmic situation and levels empathy except for truthfulness. Conclusion: Ethical dilemmas are common during dental practice and the way they are handled differ among dentists. Although most of them were empathetic there is no significant association between dilemma and levels of empathy except for truthfulness. Keywords: Ethical Principles, Dilemma, Empathy, Dental ethics, Case Scenarios