ArticleBMC medical education2019
Empathy, burnout, life satisfaction, correlations and associated socio-demographic factors among Chinese undergraduate medical students: an exploratory cross-sectional study.
Article in BMC medical education, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 100 citations in OpenAlex.
- Measuring medical student wellbeing longitudinally: a psychometric systematic review of commonly used scales.Canadian medical education journal · 2026Pooled it
- Effectiveness of mindfulness-based interventions on empathy: A meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Pooled it
- Improvement of the management of mental well-being and empathy in Chinese medical students: a randomized controlled study.BMC medical education · 2021Trial
- Improvement of medical students' stress, dispositional mindfulness, well-being and flourishing during the first academic year of a medical curriculum integrating a well-being longitudinal strand.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Burnout and empathy in dental students: a cross-sectional study of their association and related factors.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Predictors of Empathy in Dental Education: Insights from a Cross-Sectional Measurement Using the Jefferson Scale.Oral health & preventive dentistry · 2026Article
- The belief in a just world and empathy in nursing students: the role of self-esteem.BMC nursing · 2026Article
- Soft skills and potential covariates in first year health science students in Latin America: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Medical narrative competency, empathy, and self-efficacy among senior medical undergraduates in China: a cross-sectional analysis.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Burnout among VET pathway university students: The role of academic stress and school-life satisfaction.BMC public health · 2025Article
- The Chinese-Adapted Jefferson Scale of Empathy - Medical Student Version for Assessing the Level of Empathy in Medical Students: A Study of the Reliability and Validity.Advances in medical education and practice · 2025Article
- The relationship between empathy and mental health: A mediation model via rumination and interpersonal competence.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Empathy in undergraduate medical students: A multivariate cross-sectional study in China.PloS one · 2025Article
- Academic burnout syndrome among medical students in Serbia: prevalence of high risk and determinants.BMC medical education · 2024Observational
- Cognitive empathy variations during internship: a study from Iran.BMC medical education · 2024Article
- Empathy in undergraduate medical students: a multi-center cross-sectional study in China.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- The impact of empathy on medical students: an integrative review.BMC medical education · 2024Review
- A Network Analysis Study on the Structure and Gender Invariance of the Satisfaction with Life Scale among Spanish University Students.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
- Mobile Phone Addiction and Psychological Capital Mediates the Relationship Between Life Satisfaction and Learning Burnout in Chinese Medical Postgraduate Students: A Structural Equation Model Analysis.Psychology research and behavior management · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMedical education is widely known to be a demanding process that may cause various mental health problems, such as burnout, which can lead to lowered levels of life satisfaction among medical students. Research shows that empathy is negatively correlated with burnout, but there are few studies on the relationship among empathy, burnout and life satisfaction in medical students. The objective of the present study is to explore the correlations of empathy and burnout with life satisfaction and the associated socio-demographic factors among Chinese undergraduate medical students.
methodsIn this cross-sectional study, 1271 undergraduate medical students (age 19.42 ± 1.34 years, 36% male) from 1st to 4th grades completed questionnaires including the Interpersonal Reactivity Index Chinese version (IRI-C), the Maslach Burnout Inventory Modified Chinese version (MBI-MC), the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) and socio-demographic characteristics. Statistical analyses included Student's t-test, one-way ANOVA, post hoc Bonferroni tests, hierarchical linear regression analysis and general linear model-univariate full factorial model.
resultsOver four academic years, medical students' empathy levels declined, but their burnout levels almost plateaued and their life satisfaction levels witnessed an initial fall before a rebound. Empathy was correlated with students' age and grade, and burnout was associated with students' maternal education. Significant differences in life satisfaction were detected with regard to medical students' age, academic year, the number of children in the family, place of residence and parents' educational levels.
conclusionsEmpathy explained 0.6% of the variance in life satisfaction in contrast to 13.7% of the variance explained by burnout in life satisfaction. Although empathy did not have a main effect on life satisfaction, there was an interaction effect of empathy and burnout on life satisfaction among students of high and low empathy and burnout levels. Students with high levels of empathy and low levels of burnout were most satisfied with life. Medical institutions and related authorities need to find effective measures to enhance students' empathy levels and reduce burnout to improve their life satisfaction.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.