Correlation between individual social capital and humanistic care ability in nursing students: multiple mediating role of positive psychological capital and adaptive emotion expression

Abstract

Objective To explore the multiple mediating role of positive psychological capital and adaptive emotion expression between individual social capital and humanistic care ability in nursing students. Methods From December 2018 to August 2019, the study selected 238 undergraduate nursing students of Grade 2015 to 2018 by cluster stratified sampling as subjects in a medical university. All of students were investigated with the Caring Ability Inventory, Individual Social Capital Questionnaire, Positive Psychological Capital Scale and Emotional Expression Questionnaire in college students of China. Structure equation model was used to analyze the correlations among the variables. Results Among 238 nursing students, the scores of humanistic care ability, individual social capital, positive psychological capital, inhibitory emotion expression, adaptive emotion expression and excessive emotion expression were (185.79±17.52) , (20.26±2.38) , (125.24±17.71) , (17.23±3.86) , (20.85±3.91) and (9.70±3.97) respectively. Individual social capital, positive psychological capital, adaptive emotion expression and humanistic care ability had positive correlations with each other (r=0.223-0.627, P<0.01) . Multiple mediating effect model analysis showed that the positive psychological capital and adaptive emotion expression had multiple mediating roles between individual social capital and humanistic care ability in nursing students (P<0.05) . The relative mediating effects of positive psychological capital, adaptive emotion expression and chain mediation were 83.37%, 11.64 % and 4.77% respectively. Conclusions Nursing students have a low level of humanistic care ability with the adaptive emotion expression. Nursing educators can improve nursing students' individual social capital, enrich their positive psychological capital and strengthen their adaptive emotion expression so as to cultivate the humanistic care ability. Key words: Students, nursing; Humanistic care ability; Individual social capital; Positive psychological capital; Emotion expression