Effects of behavior simulation experience teaching in improving college nursing students′ empathy

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the effects of behavior simulation experience teaching in improving college nursing students′ empathy in health education from the perspective of students, and to provide a basis for further improvement in health education. Methods Totally 82 college nursing students in health education courses between September 2015 and May 2016 received behavior simulation experience teaching, who chose a behavior to be simulated (take medicine, diet control, exercise, regular sleep and temperature monitoring) by drawing, and received simulation experience for 10 days. At the end of the courses, their empathy was evaluated with JSE-HP questionnaire (Chinese edition) . Results Totally 75.6% of them could complete behavior simulation tasks, and most of them (over 90%) were interested in the tasks and gave positive comments, saying that they were inspired by simulation experience which could help them learn and understand the theories that followed. After the simulation experience, their scores for empathy, thinking in others′ position, emotional nursing and perspective-taking were (115.11±13.63) , (10.38±2.77) , (45.48±6.36) , and (59.26±6.81) , respectively, all higher than the scores before the simulation experience (P<0.05) . Conclusions Behavior simulation experience teaching is recognized by the students, which helps to enhance their empathy in health education, but needs further improvement to achieve better teaching effects and training purposes. Key words: Health education; College nursing students; Behavior simulation experience; Empathy