Empathy Training for Healthcare Professional Students

April 8, 2026 updated by: Dr Liu Tai Wa, Hong Kong Metropolitan University

Empathy Training for Healthcare Students Through Combined Didactic, Practical and AI-based Methods

This study aims to examine the effects of a newly developed training program on the empathy of healthcare students. The objectives are: (i) designing and implementing an User Interface (UI) using Unity featuring 3D virtual clients representing individuals with physical disabilities, bodily discomforts, and psychosocial disturbances, paired with a chatbot interface for interactive questions-and-answers; (ii) developing a brief empathy training program incorporating AI-generated virtual clients into traditional teaching methods, including didactic lectures, skills rehearsal, mindfulness-based training, and practice with AI-generated virtual clients; and (iii) assessing the impact of this training program on the empathetic attitude, empathetic communication skills, and cognitive flexibility of healthcare students.

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Various traditional pedagogies have been used in empathy training for healthcare students. For instance, didactic lectures often aim at introducing the scientific information of empathy, while experiential learning, such as role-playing and standardized patient interactions, are used to facilitate learning through reflection on doing and minimizing stereotypes. Additionally, mindfulness-based training is employed to promote self-awareness and cultivate essential traits in healthcare students and clinicians, such as being nonjudgmental, kind, compassionate, and altruistic. However, a previous systematic review revealed inconsistent findings about the effects of traditional pedagogies and highlighted the need for innovative teaching approaches from healthcare educators.

Perspective-taking is a crucial empathy-related phenomenon that refers to the capability of comprehending the intentions of others. Despite the use of experiential learning strategies in previous empathy training, previous studies are not without limitations. For instance, role-play and standardized patients in developing clinical empathy have been criticized for limited authenticity, variations in skills and consistency of participants, inadequate quality feedback, and resource intensity. Recent studies have also explored the use of virtual reality as an experiential learning component to render experiences of immersion, presence, and embodiment. However, these strategies cannot cover a wide range of clinical situations or provide timely feedback.

In recent years, technological advancements have provided new opportunities for innovative educational strategies. One such promising approach is the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated virtual clients in empathy training. AI-generated virtual clients can simulate a wide range of client interactions, offering a repeatable environment to practice and cultivate empathy. The integration of virtual clients into empathy training programs has the potential to revolutionize healthcare education. Thus, this research proposal aims to examine the effects of a brief empathy training program utilizing AI-generated virtual clients and traditional pedagogies on the empathy levels of healthcare students. By incorporating AI-generated virtual clients into newly developed empathy training protocol, along with elements of didactic lectures and mindfulness-based training, the investigators hypothesize that students will experience a significant improvement in empathetic attitude, and then leading to better empathetic communication skills and cognitive flexibility.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

108

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Hong Kong
    • Kowloon
      • Ho Man Tin, Kowloon, Hong Kong
        • Recruiting
        • Hong Kong Metropolitan University
        • Contact:
        • Contact:

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • undergraduate students enrolled in a healthcare-related program
  • no previous experience with empathy-related training
  • no previous experience working in healthcare settings
  • age 18 years or above
  • native Chinese speakers.

Exclusion Criteria:

- are or were the main carers of people who are disabled or chronically ill because empathy may be promoted through experience.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Other
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Control
Experimental: Intervention
Participants in the intervention group will undertake two sessions, each lasting four hours, of empathy training over a one-week period with group size of 6 to 8 participants. The first training session consists of a 4-hour didactic component focused on empathy frameworks and communication strategies. The second training session includes a 2-hour mindfulness training component followed by a 2-hour AI demonstration and practice component where participants engage with virtual client scenarios.
Other: Empathy training
Participants in the intervention group will undertake two sessions, each lasting four hours, of empathy training over a one-week period with group size of 6 to 8 participants. The empathy training will base on our newly developed protocol, including: (i) didactic lectures; (ii) practical skills demonstration and role-play, (iii) a mindfulness-based training; and (iv) practice of empathic skills in two different randomly selected scenarios with feedback from the AI system. Each participants will encounter different scenarios that simulate diverse clinical challenges.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Interpersonal Reactivity Index
Time Frame: Baseline assessment (prior to any training), (ii) immediate post-training assessment (immediately after the final training session, end of week 1), and (iii) 1-month follow-up assessment (approximately 4 weeks after the final training session).
The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) will be used to assess self-reported empathetic attitude. IRI consists of 4 subscale with 28 items rating on a 5 - point Likert scale (0 - 4). Score ranges from 0 - 112, higher score means better empathy.
Baseline assessment (prior to any training), (ii) immediate post-training assessment (immediately after the final training session, end of week 1), and (iii) 1-month follow-up assessment (approximately 4 weeks after the final training session).

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Consultation and Relational Empathy
Time Frame: Baseline assessment (prior to any training), (ii) immediate post-training assessment (immediately after the final training session, end of week 1), and (iii) 1-month follow-up assessment (approximately 4 weeks after the final training session).
The Consultation and Relational Empathy (CARE) measure will be used to assess participants' empathic communication skills, focusing on patient-perceived empathy during clinical interactions. CARE consists of 10 items rating on a 5 point Likert scale. Score ranges from 10 - 50, higher score means better perceived relational empathy.
Baseline assessment (prior to any training), (ii) immediate post-training assessment (immediately after the final training session, end of week 1), and (iii) 1-month follow-up assessment (approximately 4 weeks after the final training session).
Cognitive Flexibility Inventory
Time Frame: Baseline assessment (prior to any training), (ii) immediate post-training assessment (immediately after the final training session, end of week 1), and (iii) 1-month follow-up assessment (approximately 4 weeks after the final training session).
Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI) will be used to assess self-reported cognitive flexibility. CFI consists of 20 items rating on 1-7 Likert scale (score range 20 - 140), higher score means greater flexibiity and lower score means more cognitive rigidity.
Baseline assessment (prior to any training), (ii) immediate post-training assessment (immediately after the final training session, end of week 1), and (iii) 1-month follow-up assessment (approximately 4 weeks after the final training session).

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Hong Kong Metropolitan University

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Tai Wa Liu, PhD, Hong Kong Metropolitan University

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

February 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

December 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

December 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 12, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 27, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

January 6, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 13, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 8, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • REC Reference No:HE-T&L2025/02

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

Non-identifiable individual participant data is available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author after the report published.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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