Author(s)

Víctor Patricio Díaz-Narváez^1,2*, Fredy Gutierrez-Ventura³, Teresa Varela de Villalba⁴, Mercedes Salcedo-Rioja⁵, Aracelis Calzadilla-Núñez⁶, Muna Hamdan-Rodríguez⁷, Marcos Cervantes⁸

¹Universidad San Sebastián, Santiago, Chile.
²Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
³School of Dentistry, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima, Perú.
⁴Universidad Católica de Córdoba, Córdoba, Argentina.
⁵School of Dentistry, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Perú.
⁶Hospital Félix Bulnes, Santiago, Chile.
⁷School of Nursing, Universidad de Cartagena, Cartagena, Colombia.
⁸Faculty of Psychology, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia.

Objectives: To compare the empathy of students in two faculties of Dentistry in Peru and Argentina, three factors were considered: universities, academic year and gender. Material and Methods: Empathy matrices in Dentistry students were measured using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy, culturally validated in Peru and Argentina. Empathy data were compared among and within the faculties tested using a three-factor analysis of variance (model III), a Duncan test, and a discriminant analysis. The level of significance used was less than 0.05. Results: We found that differences existed between the students tested. The comparison between the levels of empathy in the studied factors and the presence of unexplained variance showed that empathy was able to differentiate populations. Conclusions: The results indicate variability in the empathy values associated with the factors studied. The discriminant test confirms the differences between faculties revealed by the data matrix resulting from the JSE. These differences are possibly due to the effect of educational and social factors.

Empathy, Dentistry Students, Peru, Argentina

Díaz-Narváez, V. , Gutierrez-Ventura, F. , de Villalba, T. , Salcedo-Rioja, M. , Calzadilla-Núñez, A. , Hamdan-Rodríguez, M. and Cervantes, M. (2015) Empathy Levels of Dentistry Students in Peru and Argentina. Health, 7, 1268-1274. doi: 10.4236/health.2015.710141.