Effects of empathy training based on professional perception in junior nurses

Objective To explore the effects of professional perception based empathy training on clinical communication competency, perceived professional benefits and self-efficacy of junior nurses. Methods The study was designed with the quasi-experimental study. From March to September 2018, a total of 67 junior nurses with low levels of self-efficacy at Henan Cancer Hospital were recruited as subjects with the way of voluntary registration. All of nurses were divided into 5 groups, 12 to 15 nurses in each group. This study carried out the face-to face empathy training taking professional perception as the main content5 times for 5 weeks. The effects were evaluated with the Nurses' Clinic Communication Competency Scale, Nurses' Perceived Profession Benefits Questionnaire and the General Self-efficacy Scale (GSES) before and after training. SPSS 22.0 statistical software was used in statistical analysis. Results There were three nurses quitting the training and 64 nurses completed the training. Among 64 nurses, the total average scores of clinic communication competency, perceived professional benefits and general self-efficacy after training were (3.75±0.66) , (4.65±0.40) and (2.53±0.20) respectively higher than those before training with statistical differences (t=5.058, 7.911, 25.979; P<0.01) . Conclusions Professional perception based empathy training can improve clinical communication competency, perceived professional benefits and self-efficacy of junior nurses which could be further expanded and applied in nurses. Key words: Nurses; Junior; Communication skills; Perceived professional benefits; Self-efficacy; Empathy training