Adaptación del cuestionario de empatía de Toronto (TEQ) como instrumento de evaluación psicométrica enfocado en animales de compañía

Abstract

Is empathy essential to veterinary practice? Evidence suggests that empathy enhances the understanding of companion animals´ emotional states and strengthens the human-animal bond, promoting more ethical animal care and contributing to the development of a more compassionate society. This study aimed to evaluate the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ) as a psychometric instrument for assessing empathy toward companion animals. The TEQ was adapted for assessing empathy toward companion animals and administered, together with the original questionnaire to 200 university students aged 18-25 years from different academic disciplines, who participated anonymously and voluntarily. Descriptive and comparative analyses were performed according to academic discipline and gender and differences were assessed using Student´s t-test (p < 0,05). The adapted questionnaire yielded a higher proportion of empathetic participants (54%) tan the original version (49%). Veterinary Medicine students exhibited the highest proportion of empathetic individuals (61%) compared with students from the other academic disciplines, while female participants demonstrated higher empathy levels (59%) than male participants (46%). Although statistically significant differences were observed among academic disciplines (p < 0,05) no significant differences were found between the original and adapted questionnaires. These findings suggest that the study population exhibits comparable levels of empathy toward companion animals and humans. Moreover, the adapted TEQ represents a promising instrument that has the potencial to serve as a valuable psychometric tool for investigating the human-animal bond, guiding strategies to enhance animal welfare, and helping prevent profesional burnout among future veterinarians. Keywords Gender, burnout, veterinary medicine, human-animal bond, empathy