Abstract

  Empathy is a life skill and a trainable competence. In nursing profession, empathy is highly associated with observed caring characteristics of nurses. Whenever empathy was offered to the patients, there was improved health outcomes for the clientele. Regardless of the actual benefits of empathy, inconsistencies in developing and sustaining empathy were reported. The study conducted a needs analysis and implemented an intervention intended in promoting development and sustainability of empathy among nurses in Kenyatta National Hospital. A multi-stage mixed method study design was used: explanatory sequential approach (needs assessment) and quasi-experimental design (pre/post intervention) were applied. The study samples were; a stratified random sample of 189 nurses and a purposive sample of 16 nurses for two focused group discussions. A training intervention was implemented and pre/post scores compared. Knowledge on observable characteristics related to empathy was low during baseline (20%) however, an increase to high (90%) was reported after the training intervention. The knowledge scores on the factors that favoured development of empathy improved significantly following training (M_b = 0.50, M_e = 0.87), t(385), = -12.80, p < 0.05. Similar improvements in knowledge scores were attained on the factors that hinder development (M_b = 0.48, M_e = 0.88), t(385), = -14.13, p < 0.05; factors that favour sustainability (M_b = 0.66, M_e = 0.83), t(385), = -6.23, p < 0.05 and factors that hinder sustainability of empathy among nurses (M_b = 0.34, M_e = 0.66), t(385), = -9.75, p < 0.05. Knowledge on developing and sustaining empathy ranged between very low to average before interventional training. This achievement suggests that empathy is a learnable competence. Training empathy skills can empower nurses to practice through offering training opportunities. This underscores the need to integrate empathy as a core course in both pre and in service for nurse training.

Keywords: Altruism; Competence; Development; Empathy; Nursing; Sustainability

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Citation

Citation: Karani K Anna., et al. "Empowering Nurses on Empathy: A Quasi-Experimental Study at Kenyatta National Hospital". Acta Scientific Paediatrics 3.11 (2020): 48-58.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Karani K Anna., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.