Empathy, psychometrics, cut-off points in nursing students from Latin America.

Background: Currently, there are no cut-off points for levels of empathy, making it difficult to assess the change experienced in its development or as a result of its intervention. It is an unsolved problem.

Introduction: Empathy is a cognitive-affective attribute that enables nursing staff to maintain a professional relationship that entails various benefits for the patient.

Psychometry and Cut-off Points of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy in Medical Students in Central America and the Caribbean.

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine cut-off points that can be used to differentiate measures of empathy, which would then be classified as high, medium, or low. To do so, we used data from students from 7 medical schools in Colombia, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic, after determining the psychometric properties of the 3-dimensional model of empathy in the Jefferson Scale of Empathy, S-version (for medical students).

Materials And Methods: This non-experimental descriptive study had a sample that consisted of 6291 students.

Psychometric properties of the Jefferson Empathy Scale in four nursing student faculties.

Objective: To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Jefferson Medical Empathy Scale, Spanish version (JSE-S), its factorial structure, reliability, and the presence of invariance between genders in the behavior of empathy levels among Chilean nursing students.

Method: Instrumental research design. The JSE-S was applied to 1,320 nursing students.

Psychometry and empathy levels and its dimensions in postgraduate students of dental specialties.

Background: Empathy is an attribute that has an important role in the dentist-patient therapeutic relationship, clinical care and adherence to treatment, amongst other benefits. The aim of this research was to determine empathy in dentists in the process of specialisation.

Materials And Methods: Through an observational and cross-sectional study, all postgraduate students of Dentistry Faculty of Universidad Andrés Bello (Chile) were analysed (N = 195).

Psychometric analysis of a measure of acceptance of new technologies (UTAUT), applied to the use of haptic virtual simulators in dental students.

Background: The aims of this study are (a) to assess the psychometric quality of an instrument of acceptance of new technologies adapted from the UTAUT model, (b) to validate the UTAUT model as a valid measure to be applied in dental education, and (c) to determine which factors of the UTAUT model predict the behavioural intention of using a haptic virtual simulator (HVS).

Methods: A cross-sectional design study with a sample of 265 dentistry students was carried out.

Results: Using structural equation modelling, confirmatory factor analysis verified the adequacy of four-factor model, although the only factor that directly predicts behavioural intention is performance expectancy.