Empathy and Its Predictive Factors in Undergraduate Health Professional Students: A Longitudinal Cohort Study

<b>Background:</b> Empathy is essential for enhancing care quality, making its understanding and predictors crucial for healthcare education. <b>Objective:</b> To investigate empathy evolution and its predictors among first-year health professional students at a university in Albania. <b>Methods:</b> A longitudinal cohort study was conducted on a total of 206 participants (78.2% female, mean age 18.4 years), with empathy assessed at baseline and program completion using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professional Students. <b>Results</b>: The findings revealed stable empathy levels overall (<i>p</i> = 0.369), with no significant differences between nursing and other students. Approximately 52.9% experienced empathy gains, while 44.7% experienced losses, yielding an average score change of +0.7 (SD = 14.9). A younger age and lower baseline empathy scores were significant predictors of empathy gains, as shown by regression analyses. <b>Conclusions:</b> The study highlights a dual empathy trajectory among students and emphasizes a person-centered approach to health professional education to foster empathy development.