THE EFFECTS OF NURSE EMPATHY TRAINING AS MEASURED BY PATIENT SATISFACTION LEVELS.
Contributors: United States International University.
Published: 1990
Number of pages: 155
Subjects: Health Sciences, Health Care Management.; Health Sciences, Education.; Education, Adult and Continuing.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: The problem. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of nurse empathy training on levels of patient satisfaction.

Method. Data for patient satisfaction levels were secured from surveys sent to patients discharged from an experimental and control unit before and after the nurse empathy training. The La Monica-Oberst Patient Satisfaction Scale was used to determine levels of patient satisfaction. The surveys were mailed to discharged patients for a period of six months before the training to establish a data baseline. The nurse empathy training, conducted by the researcher with nursing staff of the experimental unit, consisted of various teaching strategies, such as lecture, discussion, role-playing and personal insight through instrument feedback. The design of the class was based on available literature which suggested various learning activities appropriate to enhancement of perceiving and responding with empathy. One month after the training intervention was completed, the patient satisfaction surveys were mailed for a period of six months to all patients discharged from the control and experimental nursing units.

Results. The data supported the ten null hypotheses. These results suggested that the particular training intervention conducted in the study did not evidence a significant statistical difference in patient satisfaction as measured by the La Monica-Oberst Patient Satisfaction Scale and the four factor subscales on dissatisfaction, interpersonal support, good impression and empathy. The only significant statistical difference was the relationship of the age of survey respondents to the total satisfaction and empathy subscale scores. The data indicated an F ratio of 2.92 with an associated probability of P equals.04. The mean difference of 3.14 indicated that older patients clearly reported higher scores.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-12, Section: B, page: 5534.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY, 1990.

School code: 0239.