The Development of an Educational Program for Cultivating Nurses' Empathic Support Skills and the Verification of Its Effects

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25463441
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Clinical nursing
• Research Institution: Juntendo University
• Principal Investigator: UENO Kyoko 順天堂大学, 医療看護学部, 教授 (50159349)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 熊谷 たまき 大阪市立大学, 大学院看護学研究科, 教授 (10195836) ; 小竹 久実子 奈良県立医科大学, 医学部, 教授 (90320639) ; 阿部 美香 順天堂大学, 医療看護学部, 助教 (90708992)
• Research Collaborator: YAMAGUCHI Seiko イムス富士見総合病院, 看護部長 ; OKAMOTO Takahiro 順天堂大学, 医療看護学部, 准教授
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 共感援助 / 看護師-患者関係 / 緩和ケア / 尺度開発 / 教育介入

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Empathic support was defined as the behaviors of nurses who support patients by cuddling and empathizing with them. The purpose of this research was to develop a scale that measures them and devise an educational program to carry out empathic support toward palliative care patients. We conducted an interview survey of four types of nurses (Research 1) and developed the Empathic Support Behavior Scale (ESB) based on interview results (Research 2). ESB was composed of 16 items and three factors (empathy, psychological approach, and holistic understanding). Their fitness, validity, and reliability were high. We also conducted educational intervention on seven nurses and compared their ESB scores immediately before and one month after it (Research 3). Educational intervention has a tendency to raise the scores of empathy and psychological approaching, showing that it helped nurses to consciously engage in daily conversation with patients.

Free Research Field

精神看護学