The measure of basic empathy levels in health professionals

Purpose: This study is a descriptive and cross-sectional research, aiming to compare the basic empathy levels of health care professionals, to identify the differentiating variables like gender, age and occupation and additionally to determine the relevance with some variables such as life satisfaction and burn out. Material and Method: The sample of the study is consisted of 164 volunteers who are randomly selected among the health care professionals; nurses, doctors, midwives and technicians working in Turgut Özal Hospital (Annex of Ankara Doctor Sami Ulus Woman and Child Health and Sicknesses Hospital). In this study, SDMÖMDSF, TEÖ, YDÖ and İEÖ scales are used and analyzed by SPSS 22 package program. Pearson Moment Correlation, Independent Samples t Test, ANOVA and Simple Lineer Regression Analysis are performed. Findings: The basic empathy level of health professionals older than 34,55 years of age are higher than the ones younger than 34,55 years of age. Women have higher basic emphaty levels than men, and nurses higher than doctors. Results: The concepts of communication, empathy, expression and life satisfaction related with health care professionals are so important that need to be investigated further in order to increase the quality of health care services in our country. Keywords: Health Care Professionals, Basic Empathy Levels, Communication in Health Services