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The objectives of this research were to investigate the effects of nurse empathy training on the client outcomes of anxiety, depression, hostility, and satisfaction with nursing care and the impact of group instruction on the empathy levels of nurses. All registered nurses on two units were presented with an empathy training program (n = 56) or a control program (n-53). Clients (N=656) on the units, all of whom had cancer, were assessed before and after staff development programs with the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List and the La Monica/Oberst Patient Satisfaction Scale. Clients cared for by nurses in the experimental group showed significandy less anxiety and hostility than clients cared for prior to the experimental treatment; mean differences on depression and satisfaction with care were in the hypothesized direction. These effects were not evident in the clients of the control group. Client and selfreport empathy scores did not show significant changes as a result of either program, perhaps due to ceiling effects.
The goals of nursing practice are to identify clients' stressors and problems and to direct efforts to help in adapting, coping, and responding to necessary changes so that optimal health can be realized (Henderson, 1966; Kalkman & Davis, 1974; La Monica, 1985a; Loomis & Wood, 1983; Nightingale, 1860/1969; Orlando, 1961; Parse, 1981; Peplau, 1952; Riehl & Roy, 1980; Rogers, 1970; Roy, 1980). To fulfill these goals, nurses must establish a helping relationship with clients, thereby enabling the process of nursing to be applied in accomplishing effective actions.
A widely accepted and investigated helping model stems from the work of Rogers (1961) and Carkhuff (1969a, 1969b). The core conditions in this model are empathy, respect, warmth, genuineness, self-disclosure, concreteness, confrontation, and immediacy of relationship (Carkhuff, 1969b). Research suggests that empathy is a key ingredient of the helping relationship and a teachable skill; empathy is crucial to effective interpersonal processes and essential at the outset of a helping relationship (Barrett- Leonard, 1981; Berenson & Mitchell, 1968; Carkhuff, 1968, 1969a; Collingwood, 1971; Collingwood & Renz, 1969; Mitchell, Mitchell, & Berenson, 1970; Muehlberg, Pierce, & Drasgrow, 1969; Truax, 1970a, 1970b; Truax & Wittmer, 1971; Truax, Wittmer, & Wargo, 1971). Research also indicates that increasing one's level of empathy increases one's effectiveness in a helping relationship. It...