A longitudinal study of the short-term effects of art-based educational course on empathy and aesthetic value in medical students

Abstract Background Empathy is a fundamental component of patient-centered care, but it remains challenging to foster empathy in undergraduate medical education. Art-based educational courses have been shown to enhance empathy, though evidence regarding the maintenance of these effects remains limited. Aesthetic value, one of the key dimensions of personal values, is defined as an orientation toward beauty, harmony, form, and expressive experience. Because aesthetic value has been linked to empathy in previous studies, it may represent one mechanism through which art-based educational courses promote empathic development. However, this relationship has rarely been examined in medical education. This study aimed to examine changes in medical students’ aesthetic value following an art-based educational course and to explore its relationship with empathy. Methods This 2-year longitudinal study was conducted at a single medical school in Japan from 2021 to 2023. A total of 117 undergraduate medical students participated in a 2-week art-based educational course incorporating drawing exercises and Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS). The educational effects were evaluated using a questionnaire-based assessment that included the Multidimensional Empathy Scale (MES) and the aesthetic value subscale of the Value-Intention Scale, a validated Japanese instrument based on Spranger’s six values, at three time points: before, immediately after, and two weeks after the intervention. Changes in empathy subscales over time were evaluated using a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Holm-adjusted multiple comparisons, and correlations between changes in empathy and aesthetic value were examined using Pearson’s correlation coefficients. Results Perspective-taking, a core component of empathy, significantly increased post-intervention and was maintained at follow-up. Other empathy subscales showed either no significant changes or significant improvements immediately after the intervention that were not maintained at follow-up. Changes in Perspective-taking had a positive correlation with changes in aesthetic value, suggesting an association between aesthetic value and the development of empathy. Conclusions An art-based educational course achieved maintained improvements in empathy among medical students, supporting its potential value in medical education. Empathy was found to be related to aesthetic value, suggesting that intentional inclusion of activities designed to foster aesthetic value may enhance the effectiveness of art-based educational programming.