How empathic are midwifery students?

Aim. The aim of the described study was to evaluate levels of empathy among midwifery students in Faculties of Croatia, Slovenia, Belgium and Poland; each state representing diff erent regions of Europe, but at the same time all of them have similarities of midwifery education due to EU directives. Material and methods. Quantitative study was undertaken, by using a validated research instrument – Midwifery Empathy Scale (MES) that was translated through double blind procedure for each country. A purposive sample of midwifery students was used, including students of 1st year, 2nd year and 3rd year undergraduate studies . The Ethics committee of the faculty approved the research design. Basic descriptive measures were calculated. Results. The statement that achieved highest rating on MES scale was »I believe that empathy plays an important role in midwifery care«, while the least agreed upon were: »Women’s emotions do not concern me, I do not get emotionally aff ected when I see a woman cry and Very sensitive women irritate me«. Altogether, mean values did not diff er when comparing 1st year and last year midwifery students, with average score being 59 on a MES-R. Conclusions. We can not conclude that current curriculum in the researched institutions foster empathy levels of the students, however some diff erences indicated possible cultural components.