Measuring agreeableness in medical students with an inventory of Personality traits

Objectives: In several medical schools, empathy levels decrease along the years, and there is no measure of agreeableness in medical schools. This study aimed to evaluate agreeableness as empathy marker in medical students, in a short version of a personal traits questionnaire, and to compare with other personal characteristics and other students at different times of medical graduation. Methods: We applied the self-report Big Five Inventory (BFI-10) to 200 medical students in one Brazilian medical school, set in 5 cohorts from 1st to 6th year. Analysis were upon the agreeableness scores as well psy-chometric characteristics of scales on the BFI-10, including their part-whole correlations with the BFI-44 scales, retest reliability, structural validity, and convergent validity with the IRI. Results: Although agreeableness shows some correlation to gender and self-related spirituality, BFI-10 scales retain low levels of reliability and convergent validity. No decreasing levels of agreeableness scores have hap-pened along the years in medical school and no relation to medical specialty choice. Female (n=121) has higher agreeableness scores in relation to male students. Self-related higher level spirituality has relation to higher agreeableness scores (p<0,05). Conclusions: Agreeableness as a personality trait and a non-direct measure of empathy must be managed all through the medical course. Thus, it is a multifactorial trait, and self-reports questionnaires may not be sufficient to assess such interpersonal feature. Considering the fact that BFI-10 is a brief inventory with a short application time it can easily be used in transcultural studies, as well in research settings with truly limited time constraints.