FACTORS AFFECTING THE IDENTIFICATION BY NURSES OF SELECTED EMOTIONS FROM VIDEOTAPED FACES OF YOUNG, MIDDLE-AGED AND OLDER WOMEN.
Contributors: University of Maryland, College Park.
Published: 1991
Number of pages: 144
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Human Development.
Description: Interpersonal communication which includes identification of facial expressions is one of the major components of nursing practice. The purpose of this study was to investigate the predictive ability of age, type of basic nursing education, type of worksetting and length of nursing experience on the ability of registered nurses to identify selected emotions from the videotaped faces of young, middle-aged and older faces. A possible difference between nurses from different worksettings, in their ability to identify emotion from older faces, was also of interest. Few studies of adult facial emotion recognition, and none of the studies using older faces, identified nurses as subjects.

One hundred and thirty-seven female registered nurses, ranging in age from 24 to 65 years participated in this study. They represented the three types of nursing preparation, various health care worksettings, and different lengths of experience. Their task was to identify anger, fear and sadness from a fifty-five minute videotape contributed by Dr. Carol Malatesta from a previous study. The subjects provided demographics, including age, type of basic nursing education, type of worksetting, number of years working as a nurse, race, ethnicity, and patient population served.

A total facial emotion decoding score and scores on the individual emotions were generated and subjected to statistical analysis, including correlations, analysis of variance and analysis of covariance. The results showed no significant relationships between the total facial decoding score and the four independent variables. The range of correct answers for the total score was 6 to 26, out of a possible 90. There was no significant difference as well between nurses from different worksettings in identifying emotions from older faces.

It was concluded that the variables were not able to predict ability to identify facial emotion and that nurses are not able to identify emotions from faces at a level that exceeds that of the general population. Suggestions for future research are included.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-06, Section: B, page: 2996.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK, 1991.

School code: 0117.