The mediating role of psychological capital on the relation between distress and empathy of medical residents: a cross-sectional survey

摘要

Background: Medical residents usually suffer from work overload and experience bothpersonal and professional distress, which affects their level of the empathy to patients.Psychological capital (PsyCap) is a psychological resource that is negatively associated withindicators of distress.Objective: This study explored the potential mediating effect of PsyCap on the relationshipbetween distress and empathy, which may help healthcare professionals in their defense ofempathy erosion due to distress.Design: A total of 620 first-year residents were recruited for this cross-sectional survey.Empathy and PsyCap of residents were assessed by the Chinese version of the JeffersonScale of Physician Empathy and the Psychological Capital Questionnaire, respectively. In thisstudy, both personal and professional aspects contributing to resident distress were investi-gated by the Satisfaction with Life Scale and an occupational distress scale. T-tests and one-way ANOVA were used to test differences in empathy of residents. Pearson’s correlation wasused to examine correlations between distress, PsyCap, and empathy. Structured equationmodeling was used to conduct the pathway analysis to test the mediating effect of PsyCap onthe association between distress and empathy.Results: 537 residents (86.6%) completed the survey. Distress, empathy, and PsyCap weresignificantly correlated (P < .01) and in the expected directions. The first step analysis showedthat as distress increased, the empathy of residents significantly decreased (P < .01), with thedirect effect coefficient being 0.265. When PsyCap was included, the direct effect coefficientdecreased to 0.033. This indirect effect was significant (P < .01). The variance accounted forwas 81.14%, which indicated a partial mediating effect of PsyCap.Conclusions: PsyCap may serve a significant protective role against the impact of distress onthe level of empathy of medical residents. In addition to reducing distress, PsyCap develop-ment could be considered in empathy decline prevention and empathy cultivating strategies.