Evaluation of the patient-practitioner orientation and empathy level of medical faculty intern students educated on biopsychosocial approach

As the years of education in the medical faculty progress, students' communication skills tend to decrease and their perspective on holistic patient care disappears over time. Giving training on the biopsychosocial approach in pre-graduate medical education ensures that the competencies expected from physicians mature. The aim of this study is that the final year medical faculty students; questioning the knowledge of biopsychosocial approach, learning in which courses and internships he gained this knowledge, evaluating the patient-centered approach and empathy levels and examining the relationship between them. The study was carried out using the web-based questionnaire method created by scanning literature. In the first part of the questionnaire, there is a general information section with demographic data, in the second part questions about the biopsychosocial approach, in the third part the Patient Physician Orientation Scale (PPOS) and in the last part there is the Jefferson Doctor Empathy Scale - Student Version (JSPE-S). The research was planned for interns who study at Bursa Uludağ University Faculty of Medicine and was conducted with 226 interns (69%) who agreed to participate in the study. In our study, 49,6% (n=112) of the intern students were female and 50,4% (n=114) were male. 94,2% (n=213) of the students they were considering getting specialization training in medicine, 73% (n=165) they were trained in the biopsychosocial approach, and 61% (n=138) stated that they found themselves sufficient in this subject. The mean total score for the PPOS was 3,76±0,73 and the total mean score of JSPE-S was calculated as 100,69±16,60. A significant positive correlation was found between the total scores of PPOS and JSPE-S. As a result, it was seen that the students who received the training showed a more patient-centered approach and their empathy levels were higher. The biopsychosocial approach, which is a basic approach model in the discipline of family medicine, should also be included in the clinically focused part of medical education and this approach should be imposed on students.