The Effect of an Empathy Education Program on Nursing Students’ Empathy Ability, Interpersonal Ability, and Caring

Purpose: This study aimed to develop and evaluate the effects of an empathy education program for undergraduate nursing students. Methods: The study employed a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design. A total of 46 nursing students were voluntarily recruited by convenience sampling from senior nursing students from the nursing department of K college in I city, Korea. Participants were divided into two groups, an experimental group of 23 and a control group of 23. The experimental intervention (empathy education program) was conducted from April 19 to May 6, 2016 and consisted of 150-minute sessions, twice a week, for 3 weeks for a total of 15 hours. Results: Participants demonstrated improvements in perspective taking in cognitive empathy, improved empathic concern in emotional empathy, and improved communicative empathy. Analysis of reflective writings identified four theme clusters regarding communicative empathy: improvement of empathic expression, experiencing comfort and healing, improvement of interpersonal relationships, and experience of conflict resolution. Improved interpersonal ability and caring were also identified. Conclusion: The empathy education program improved cognitive, emotional and communicative empathy, and interpersonal skills and care, which are all necessary qualities for nurses.ope