Clinical pastoral education: its effects on students\u27 self-acceptance and level of empathy

The effects of the Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program on self- acceptance and level of empathy are sought in this study. The study also determines whether empathy is associated with the feeling of self-acceptance. The two-week CPE program had 52 students who were enrolled in any of these three hospitals -- Makati Medical Center, National Kidney Institute, and Philippine Heart Center. The CPE Program included patient visitations, verbatim reports, group seminars, and supervisory conferences. The daily schedule was from 8 am to 5 pm, Mondays to Fridays. The quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design was employed. The Personal Orientation Inventory (POI) and Empathy Construct Rating Scale (ECRS) were used in order to measure the level of self-acceptance and empathy, respectively. Only the scores in POI subscales of self-acceptance, self-regard, time acceptance, and capacity for intimate contact were used as basis for measuring the level of self-acceptance. The t-test for correlated samples and the Pearson r were employed. There was a significant increase in the CPE students\u27 scores in the four POI subscales after the training program. However, there was no increase in the CPE students\u27 level of empathy. The correlation between the CPE students\u27 level of self-acceptance and level of empathy before the CPE program was not significant