THE SOCIALIZATION OF EMPATHY: A STUDY OF NEOPHYTE BACCALAUREATE STUDENT NURSES.
Contributors: Boston College.
Published: 1989
Number of pages: 220
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Education, Curriculum and Instruction.; Education, Higher.
Description: The mechanisms of socialization at work within academic and clinical settings, which enhance the development of empathy in baccalaureate student nurses were examined in this study. The theoretical basis for this research was drawn from the convergence of socialization and empathy literature.

A combination of quantitative and qualitative methodology was utilized. The quantitative component of this study was employed to help verify the theory that empathy can be learned, while the qualitative component examined the subjective reality of empathy in terms of students' experiences and perceptions.

Thirty-nine female college sophomores, enrolled in their first clinical nursing course, completed a quantitative empathy profile at the beginning and end of the semester. Eight of these students also participated in a series of semi-structured and nonstructured interviews designed to focus on patterns, themes, and significant events which enhanced their development of empathy.

The conditions identified by students as significant to their development of empathy include: familiarity/similarity with patients; the experience of having been a patient themselves; verbal communication ability of patients, and illness of a chronic rather than acute nature. In contrast to these promoters of empathy, students identified the least effective, or barrier producing conditions as: age differences; lack of positive reinforcement; time constraints; difficult patients, and fear of death.

The findings of this study support the perspective that the development of empathy is an evolving process, rather than a specific outcome of the educational experience. Synthesis of data reveals that: (1) the socialization of empathy is multidimensional in nature; (2) the personal and professional components of empathy evolve in tandem; (3) the process of developing empathy follows a stepwise progression, and (4) neophyte students prefer nonverbal conveyance of empathy.

Nurse educators would be well advised to study the progressive development of empathy in students, as they move from novice to advanced levels of nursing education. As students come to understand the roles of professional nurses, the dimensions of empathic encounters central to those roles emerge more clearly.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-07, Section: B, page: 2846.

Thesis (PH.D.)--BOSTON COLLEGE, 1989.

School code: 0016.