Resilience, predictor of empathy in Nursing students

TL;DR

This study explores how resilience in nursing students can predict their empathy levels, finding that certain types of resilience support empathy while others hinder it.

Contribution

The study introduces a nuanced understanding of how specific resilience dimensions influence empathy in nursing students.

Findings

Ecological and engineering resilience positively predict all dimensions of empathy.

Adaptive resilience negatively predicts empathy, indicating a lack of adaptive traits in students.

Resilience education should be integrated with empathy training to enhance compassionate care.

Abstract

Studies attempting to predict empathy based on resilience are characterized by incomplete theories of both constructs and focus on obtaining empirical evidence.

To verify whether resilience can predict empathy.

A cross- sectional construct validity study was conducted. Salvadorean Nursing students were assessed using the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professions Students (JSE-HPS) and the Engineering, Ecological and Adaptive (EEA) resilience scale. Psychometric analyses (confirmatory factor analysis, reliability, and invariance) were conducted, and prediction was assessed using structural equations.

The compliance of the model of both constructs and the reliability of the data were verified. Some dimensions of resilience positively predicted the dimensions of empathy, while others predicted them negatively.

Ecological resilience and engineering resilience positively predicted all the dimensions of empathy. However, adaptive resilience negatively predicted empathy, suggesting that students may lack sufficiently developed adaptive traits to prevent declines in "compassionate care" and "standing in the patient's shoes." Therefore, their ability to connect emotionally and understand the patient's situation is hampered by a deficit of the traits that support adaptation to new situations.

Empathy and resilience education cannot be independent of each other. On the contrary, resilience exerts a protective effect that enables the free expression of empathy that students have developed over the course of their lives.

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