Effect of a Community Service-Learning Intervention on Medical Empathy and Clinical Self-Efficacy in Medical Students
Starting soon · Not applicable
Conditions studied: Medical Education
In brief
Medical empathy and clinical self-efficacy are key professional competencies that are difficult to develop through traditional classroom-based training alone. At the Faculty of Medicine of FES Iztacala (UNAM), the curriculum includes a community practice component in the Practica Clinica I module that is rarely implemented in practice, creating a gap between the formal and real curriculum. This quasi-experimental pre-post study evaluates the effect of a structured Service-Learning (SL) intervention - a community anthropometry and somatometry assessment session conducted at a primary school - on medical empathy, perceived clinical self-efficacy, and clinical report performance in 35 fourth-semester medical students. Medical empathy will be measured using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy, Student version (JSE-S), validated in Spanish for Latin American populations. Clinical self-efficacy will be measured using the Medical Self-Efficacy Scale (EAM), a 5-item Likert instrument developed by the principal investigator (Cronbach's alpha=0.818, McDonald's omega=0.862). Clinical performance will be assessed using a standardized 33-point rubric evaluated blindly by two independent faculty members, with inter-rater reliability calculated using the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC). Children participating in the community session will receive a personalized health report with their anthropometric results and, if clinically relevant findings are detected, will be referred to the University Health Clinic (CUSI) at FES Iztacala at no cost.
Key facts
- Study ID
- NCT07528521
- Run by
- Luis Angel Flores Sagrero
- People needed
- 35
- Starts
- 2026-04-08
- Expected to finish
- 2026-05-27
- Last updated by the study team
- 2026-04-14
Who can join
Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.
You may qualify if…
- Enrolled in the fourth semester of the Medico Cirujano (MD) program at FES Iztacala, UNAM
- Registered in the Practica Clinica I module during the study period
- Signed informed consent prior to any data collection
- Present at both pre-intervention and post-intervention measurement sessions
You may not qualify if…
- Previous enrollment in the Practica Clinica I module
- Prior documented clinical experience outside the university setting (internships, clinical rotations in other programs)
- Absence from the community intervention session for any reason
- Failure to complete at least one of the three measurement instruments at either time point
Where it is running
- Facultad de Estudios Superiores Iztacala, UNAM — Tlalnepantla, Mexico City, Mexico
Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov
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