Ahmed Waqas, Abdul Rehman, Aleena Sohail, Omer Kamal, Hamza Bukhari, Farrukh Munir.
Association of Religious Orthodoxy and Emotional Empathy in Pakistani Muslim Medical Students.
J Pak Psych Soc Jan ;12(2):43-6.

Objective:To explore the relationship between religious orthodoxy and emotional empathy in Pakistani medical students. Design: Cross sectional study Place and duration of the study:This cross sectional study was conducted at CMH Lahore Medical College from January 1st to February 1st, 2015. Subjects and Methods: A purposive convenient sample of 190MBBS students was drawn from CMH Lahore Medical College.The questionnaire consisted of three sections: demographics section, multidimensional emotional empathy scale and Orthodoxy Scale of Funk’s Survey of Attitudes toward Religion and Philosophy of Life. Data were analyzed in SPSS v. 20. Results:Most of the respondents taking part in this study were female and enrolled in third year of MBBS. Multiple regression analysis revealed that emotional empathy was positively associated with female gender. However, there was no significant association of emotional empathy with religious orthodoxy, age or study year of respondents. Conclusion:Our study sought the answer to a much debated question: “Are religious people really more empathic and caring than other people?” The answer we got was no, religious people are not more empathic than non-religious people.

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