Resilience and Empathy in Dental Students

AbstractObjective: empathy is a complex and multifaceted attribute, it is a human factor of significant relevance in healthcare. The study aims to determine the association between individual resilience and empathy in dental students. It seeks to test if resilience predicts empathy and its dimensions, exploring one of the determinants of empathy.Design: a quantitative approach and a descriptive, cross-sectional design were used.Method: the sample consisted of 397 students from the first to the seventh year of Dental Surgery, who were measured on both empathy and resilience, employing multiple regression analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, invariance analysis, and methods to estimate measurement reliability.Results: it is observed that resilience scarcely explains empathy variability, yet it remains a personal attribute associated with empathy. Ecological resilience increases the levels of the perspective adoption dimension, and adaptive resilience raises the compassionate threshold. Engineering resilience is not associated with any of the empathy dimensions. It is also established that the measurements of resilience and empathy are valid and reliable in the studied population.Conclusion: ecological resilience increases the levels of the perspective adoption dimension, and adaptive resilience raises the compassionate threshold. Engineering resilience is not associated with any of the empathy dimensions. Further investigation of the role of resilience in relation to empathy and its components is required, since improving healthcare professionals' empathy has positive implications for the quality of care and patient satisfaction.