Empathy plays a vital role in the pharmacist-patient relationship, enhancing patient outcomes and treatment adherence. This study aims to measure the level of empathy among Pharmacists. The study used a cross-sectional approach. The first draft of the survey was developed after conducting an extensive literature review, followed by face and content validation. The final survey was organized into three main sections: demographics, assessment of general empathy levels using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI), and empathy-related items that focused specifically on the pharmacist-patient relationship. The average age of the participants was 28.23 years (SD = 7.26), with over 80.0% female. Self-assessment of empathy levels among the pharmacists varied, with 20.7% reporting a full score of 100% on the empathy scale. The average IRI score for the pharmacists was 71.37 (SD = 12.17), and the range of the scores was from 36 to 107. Assessing the four subscales of IRI revealed varying scores for Perspective-Taking, Fantasy, Empathic Concern, and Personal Distress scales. Multiple linear regression analysis highlighted that gender and familiarity with the empathy term significantly affected the fourth subscale score (Personal Distress Scale). In addition, gender significantly affected the IRI’s total scores, with females demonstrating higher scores than males. Jordanian pharmacists demonstrated relatively high empathy levels, with Empathic Concern showing the highest scores among the IRI subscales. Gender was the only factor significantly associated with empathy, with female pharmacists reporting higher scores than males. These findings highlight the importance of strengthening empathy within pharmacy education and professional development programs to support patient-centered care.
Nassar et al. (Mon,) studied this question.