Abstract
ABSTRACT Objective: to analyze the empathy of nursing professionals who work in an urgency and emergency hospital service. Method: a cross-sectional study with 230 nursing professionals working in a public hospital in Maceió (Alagoas/Brazil). Data collected by sociodemographic questionnaire and Empathy Inventory between 2014 and 2015. Descriptive statistics of the data, analysis of variance and Cronbach's alpha of significance 0.05. Results: out of the 230 professionals, 59 were nurses and 171 mid-level nursing professionals, with a mean age of 42.3 years old, 205 were women, 120 were married, 175 had children and 108 had a college education. Participants had higher levels of affective sensitivity (82.9%) and perspective (73.0%), followed by altruism (64.7%) and interpersonal flexibility (59.7%). In general, there was a statistically significant difference between the nursing professionals in relation to empathy, and the nurse was more empathic (p value=0.039) than the other professionals. Conclusion: among the four factors that make up the empathy ability, the greater ability to take perspective, to raise awareness of other people's situations, to accept ideas that are foreign to theirs, and to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others, have stood out among the nursing professionals in the emergency service. In nursing, empathy is generally associated with the professional category.
Highlights
Empathy is an ability of social interaction constituted by affective, cognitive and behavioral components
230 nursing professionals participated in the study, where 74.3% were at the secondary level and 25.7% of the superiors, while 46.9% of the participants had a higher education level in Nursing or in other courses; 50.9% were younger than 42 years; this value was found based on the mean age of the examined group; 89.1% were female and 10.9% male; 52.2% were married and 47.8% were unmarried; 70% declared themselves as non-white and 30% as white; 76.1% had children and 23.9% had no children; the mean number of children was 1.59 and the standard deviation was 1.07 (Table 1)
It is justified that the variable presents a total percentage above 100% because the participants perform more than one activity in the moments of absence. 50.9% had another employment relationship; 88.3% have heard of empathy; 62.2% had no working time less than 120 months; 47.2% had a weekly workload of less than 36 hours and 59.6% worked in the emergency sectors and 40.4% in the emergency sectors (Table 1)
Summary
Empathy is an ability of social interaction constituted by affective, cognitive and behavioral components. There is the characterization of verbal or non-verbal communication as an explicit form of recognition of the other person’s feelings and perspectives.[1]. It is an instrument of light technology that can be used by nurses in the integral attention to the person, and materializes in the attitudes of those who apply it.[2,3] It consists of interpersonal relationships based on respect, reciprocity with the objective of helping, which in the assistance contributes to resolutive care, improves self-knowledge, increases self-care capacity, reduces anxiety and stress, and provides balance between environment and individuals.[4,5,6]
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