A Study on the Empathy of Pediatric nurses

아동간호사의 공감정도에 관한 연구 -간호사와 입원아동 어머니를 대상으로-

Empathy is an essential factor for establishing therapeutic relationship. Especially for pediatric nursing, the nurses need to know how to perceive children's feeling and thought and to express her understanding about them affectively. So, empathy is considered as an important concept in pediatric nursing. This study was attempted to measure the empathic ability of pediatric nurses by pediatric nurses and mothers of hospitalized children. The subject of this study consisted of 83 pediatric nurses and 106 mothers of hospitalized children in 4 hospitals in Seoul and 1 hospital in Kyung-Gi. Data were collected from Jan. 14 to Feb. 6, 1997, by the questionnair method. The instrument for this study was the Empathic Construct Rating Scale : ECRS(60-item, 5 point scale). Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test and ANOVA. Results of this study are summarized as follows 1. Pediatric nurses perceived their empathic ability to be moderately high (Mn=3.71). The level of perceived empathic ability of the pediatric nurses showed no significance by general characteristics. 2. The mothers of hospitalized children perceived nurses' empathic ability to be moderate(Mn=3.27). The level of perceived nurses' empathic ability of the mothers of hospitalized children showed significant differences by the experience of hospitalization of the children and the age of the mothers. 3. The perceived nurses' empathic ability of the mothers was significantly low than of the pediatric nurses(t=6.50, P<.001). From the above results, it can be concluded, that the empathic ability of the pediatric nurses is not sufficient for caring children and mothers of ficiently. So, the pediatric nurses' empathic ability is needed to improve through facilitative relationship training as refreshment in-service education program.