Abstract
The aim of this study is to explore the association between mu suppression and self-reported empathy in nurses with patients' satisfaction. For this correlational study, 30 male nurses, as well as 30 patients took care by these nurses during the week before data gathering, were selected via accessible and random sampling method, respectively. The tools included Jefferson's Scale of Empathy-health professionals, and patient's satisfaction scale of La Monica-Oberst. Activation of Mirror Neurons System (MNS) was investigated by mu suppression. For this purpose, electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded in three phases: 1) Watching the video of a non-moving hand, 2) Watching the video of a hand being open and closed, and 3) Opening and closing one-self's hand. EEG recordings were analyzed using Matlab R 2014a software. Data were analyzed by Pearson's correlation coefficients and multiple regression analyses. There was no significant correlation between mu suppression in nurses with nurses' self-reported empathy and patients' satisfaction, however, a significant correlation was found between nurses' self-reported empathy and patients' satisfaction. Regression analysis outcomes showed that nurses' self-reported empathy could predict 18.5% (nearly one fifth) of patients' satisfaction variance while mu suppression did not forecast patients' satisfaction significantly. These findings suggested that mu rhythm was a good biomarker neither for nurses' self-reported empathy nor for patients' satisfaction. In addition, it was manifested that patients' satisfaction, at least partly, depended on skills that nurses could learn, since showing empathy is highly learnable.
Highlights
The aim of this study is to explore the association between mu suppression and self-reported empathy in nurses with patients’ satisfaction
Given Morgan sampling table 45 male nurses were selected via accessible method, only 30 ones agreed to participate in EEG recording
Nurses' empathy, Mu suppression and patients' satisfaction studies had reported different relationships between mu suppression and self-reported empathy in males and females, only male nurses were recruited for this study, in order to control the effect of gender differences
Summary
The aim of this study is to explore the association between mu suppression and self-reported empathy in nurses with patients’ satisfaction. Regression analysis outcomes showed that nurses' self-reported empathy could predict 18.5% (nearly one fifth) of patients' satisfaction variance while mu suppression did not forecast patients' satisfaction significantly. Patients' expectations have been increased in recent years and they include various factors One of these factors is the current condition and services offered by health care practitioners. Empathy is one of the most important parts of nursing art.[4,5,6,7] Numerous studies have confirmed that empathy of the treatment personnel is effective in increasing the treatment efficiency and improvement of important aspects of the treatment including reduction of patients' nervous stress, anxiety, and depression as well as, decrease of physical symptoms like blood pressure, and there is no all-agreed definition of empathy, many researchers have defined it as the ability to "put one in the place of others''. Cognitive part of empathy refers to the ability of perspective taking or understanding mental states of others (Theory of Mind), while its emotional part shows the ability to feel others' feelings and comprehending their emotional states.[18,19]
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