A Study on comparing the empathy scores of institutionalized and unins titutionalized adolescents

ABSTRACT A STUDY ON COMPARING THE EMPATHY SCORES OF INSTITUnONALIZED AND UNANSTTTUTIONALIZED ADOLE SCENTS The aim of this study is to investigate the empathy levels between the ins titutionalized and unanstitutionalized adolescents. A total of 197 adolescents ran ging age from 13 to 18 (99 adolescent are institutionalized in Ankara Children Re formation Institue; 92 adolescents are training in Ostim Apprenticeship Training Center and 6 adolescents are studying in public day schools.) served as subject. In order to obtain empathy scores the Index of Empathy Skills-Form A (IES-A) (Dök men 1988) was administrated to subjects. Personel Information Form was used for obtaining information on family characteristics. In addition, special files collected by psychologists who are working for these institutions, was used for obtaining the information about delinguents. The findings of the present study indicate that uninstitutionalized adolescents' IES-A scores more highly (p>0.05) than that of scores of institutionalized ado lescents. In respect to the relationships between age and empathy scores, unins titutionalized adolescents ranging age from 15 to 16 have significantly high scores than the others. There are no statistically signifigance differences between the em pathy scores of institutionalized and uninstitutionalized adolescents in respect to the training periods, living units and the number of siblings (p>0.05). On the other hand, the delinquency form and intitutionalizing period are not significantly ef fective factors on the empathy scores of institutionalized a dolescents (p>0.05). Finally, the findings were discussed in the light of previous findings in this field. u