Nurses' Verbal Empathy in Four Types of Client Situations

Abstract

Nurses are constantly confronted with the emotions that clients experience in health care situations: their responses can affect client outcomes. Although nurses' communication skills have been studied, their empathy responses to specific types of client situations have not been investigated. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether differences exist in staff nurses' verbal empathy in response to clients who experience pain, depression, anxiety or anger - four situations common in health care. This investigation was part of a larger study of nurses' communication skills.