Level of undergradute nursing student’s empathy during the four year nursing course in selected nursing colleges of Ernakulam

Abstract

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what other person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, which states that, the capacity to place oneself in other’s position. Empathy is essential for enhancing the interpersonal relationship, overall life satisfaction and improving the ability to respond well to challenges.An empathetic approach is fundamental to the development of the therapeutic relationship between nurse and patient. There are several factors which may reduce nursing student’s empathy; lack of appropriate role models, negative attitudes towards clinical competencies, long-term presence in the clinical settings, threatening or risky educational environments, heavy educational responsibilities or clinical duties and negative reaction of patients towards the students. This study was aimed to find out the level of undergraduate nursing student’s empathy during the four-year nursing course.Descriptive research design was used. A total of 300 undergraduate nursing students were selected using convenient quota sampling methods. Data was collected using Sociodemographic data sheet and Empathy rating scale to find the level of undergraduate nursing student’s empathy during the four year nursing course. The study results revealed that 80.33% of them had good empathy and 19.67% of them had poor empathy and it was also inferred that there was significant association between selected sociodemographic variables such as age in years, year/semester of study, selection of nursing profession and level of empathy during the four-year nursing course, whereas no significant association were found between gender, types of family and level of empathy during the four-year nursing course. Empathy is a major component of an optimal nurse-patient relationship. An empathetic approach is fundamental to the development of the therapeutic relationship between nurse and patient. It was also found that as the year advances nursing students empathy is deteriorating in almost all nursing research studies which revealed that there may be some factors which affect empathy. When students are habituated to face patients with pain, surgeries and other problems they lacks empathy. It may be also due to lack of role models in clinical settings.