It is believed that solidarity is motivated by positive collective feelings (group cohesion, social responsibility, etc.), as well as by individual empathy of group members. Motivation may change vector if all members of society are potential victims of a pandemic. An analysis of data obtained from an online survey of 331 Russian-speaking respondents (19 countries) from March 2021 to April 2023 revealed a weak link between empathy (both affective and cognitive) and the solidarity attitudes on safe behavior. On the contrary, a significant correlation was found between negative Ego-feelings (fear for oneself and health) and the expression of the most important solidarity attitudes -wearing masks, social distancing and vaccination. This contradicts the old tradition of considering individual empathy as the principal factor of collective solidarity. In particular, the bodily metaphor of rapprochement, embracing with others, which is the core of empathy, contradicts the requirement of physical distance. A positive correlation was also noted between the pronouncement of solidarity attitudes and the experience of material aid to strangers. Fears for oneself and empathy for others are experiences with opposite vectors. Fears can block empathy. Thus, the phenomenon of synchronous behavior of people, similar to solidarity, but with nonspecific negative motivation, was discovered. We believe that solidarity-like activity should be distinguished from conscious, trained solidarity based on the belief that suffering and unprotected groups and people need to be supported by the state and other citizens. 

The Impact of Empathy and Fear on Solidarity during a Pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has induced fear and mental health problems in the community and among healthcare workers. Empathy with patients may be difficult in such situations due to urgent conditions. Objectives: We aimed to evaluate medical students’ empathy and fear toward COVID-19 patients during the pandemic. Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited 107 medical students from Shiraz Medical School in 2021. A Persian version of the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy (JSPE) was used to assess the participants’ empathy toward COVID-19 patients. The internal validity of the Persian version of JSPE was 0.78, and its test-retest reliability after 14 days was 0.92 in a previous study. The participants were requested to fill out a fear of COVID-19 scale (FCV-19S) previously developed to assess their fear of affliction with COVID-19. Since the normality of data distribution was not approved, we used nonparametric tests, namely, the Mann-Whitney U test and the Spearman correlation coefficient. Results: The mean empathy score based on the Persian version JSPE was 71.94 ± 12.83 out of 140, which was higher in male students and those who resided in dormitories. The mean fear score was 24.93 ± 6.16 out of 35. Participants living out of dormitories feared COVID-19 to a greater extent. No statistically significant association was found between the age of the participants and these two parameters. The Spearman correlation coefficient test showed that students with a history of COVID-19 had less fear and more empathy because of their experience with COVID-19 (r = -0.249, P-value = 0.02). Conclusions: This study highlights the impact of the pandemic on the interaction between medical students as healthcare professionals and patients by affecting medical students’ fear and empathy. The study indicates ways to improve readiness for future pandemics. Our study showed that living far away from families in dormitories may influence students’ fear and empathy. Moreover, empathy, unlike fear, was affected by gender. A reverse correlation existed between fear and empathy in students with a history of COVID-19, indicating that the more they had empathy, the less they experienced fear.

Fear and Empathy with COVID-19 Patients Among Medical Students

Introduction: Critical appraisal skills are presumed to perform a principal part in evidence-based health education and practice methods. This study aimed to design an educational intervention around critical appraisal in this context, evaluate the efficacy of the teaching methods, and investigate critical appraisal skills training to undergraduate medical students. Methods: In this prospective Randomized Control Trial (RCT), 256 sixth-year undergraduate medical students from Shiraz University of Medical Science, Shiraz, Iran, participated. 124 of the students were not taught critical thinking methods as a control group, and 132 participants were taught critical thinking methods by multi-media and attended an online Critical Appraisal Skills (CAS) training workshop as an intervention group. We used the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) questionnaire to evaluate students' knowledge, attitude, confidence, and appraisal skills. This questionnaire was translated into Persian for the first time in Iran by Shokooh Varai, et al. They investigated its validity and reliability, the reliability of the questionnaire being obtained by the Richardson Index (0.75), and the validity being confirmed by some faculty members of Tehran Nursing and Midwifery School. To compare both control and intervention groups, we used an independent t-test and a Chi-Square test at a significance level of 5%, and to analyze the demographic information, we applied some descriptive statistics: frequency, frequency percentage, mean and standard deviation. All of the statistical approaches were analyzed, using SPSS 22. Results: In all dimensions of the critical appraisal skills, medical students who completed the critical appraisal multi-media training and workshop performed better than those who did not (control group), and this difference was statistically significant (p<0.05). Moreover, the Chi-Square test results showed no statistical relationship between the groups regarding the demographic variables (p>0.05). Also, the Cohen's D effect size values in the knowledge and confidence dimensions were greater than 0.5; this meant a large effect. Regarding the attitude and appraises Skill dimensions, the effect size was between 0.2 and 0.5, which meant a medium effect. Conclusions: Teaching critical appraisal skills through multi-media and CAS online workshops to medical students effectively improves the students' knowledge and confidence in appraising articles. This teaching also indicated a medium effect on students' attitudes and behavior. Our findings can justify implementing critical appraisal skills teaching modules in the undergraduate medical education curriculum.

Critical appraisal skills training to undergraduate medical students: A Randomized Control Study

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Fatemeh Vara

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Fear and Empathy with COVID-19 Patients Among Medical Students

Critical appraisal skills training to undergraduate medical students: A Randomized Control Study