EFFECTIVENESS OF EMPATHY BUILDING PROGRAMME ON THE LEVEL OF EMPATHY IN B.SC. NURSING I YEAR STUDENTS

Context: Observing patient's behavior in healthcare services plays a vital role in improving and regulating the relationship between nurses and patients and is essential in the management of healthcare systems. One of the crucial factors in bedside behavior is the empathy that has been shown to improve patient satisfaction. In health care settings, empathy is the central aspect of nurse patient relationship. Nursing students are expected to show empathy to patients and family members while delivering compassionate care. Developing an effective building module related to empathy and communication learning for nursing students might enhance their communication skills and improve their professional identity. To compare the level of empathy before and after the empathy b Aims: uilding module in I year B.Sc. Nursing students. P.D. Hinduja Hospital & MRC, College of Nursing, One-group Settings and Design: pretestposttest design. A structured questionnaire was created through Google form consisting of 2 sections. Section A was the Jefferson Scale of Empathy & Section B was Scenario based empathy assessment. Pre-test was conducted on Day 1 to know the level of empathy in subjects followed by Empathy building. A set of four empathy modules namely Self -Awareness and awareness of others, Regulation of Behavior, Affective Responding, Integration of analytical and empathetic communication and 1 session on empathy games were developed to foster empathy skills in students. Empathy building module was delivered over a period of 1 week (7days) for 8hours held in the classroom setting as a preparation for rst clinical experience as a novice nurse. Post-test was taken after 7 days of completion of empathy building module post-test was taken to know the effectiveness of the empathy building programme. The result showed a signicant difference in the post inter Results: ventional level and pre interventional level of empathy (t28=2.947, p= 0.006) in Jefferson Scale of Empathy. With regard to Pre & Post-intervention Level of Empathy based on Scenario based questionnaire, (t28=3.380, p= 0.002), hence it can be inferred that the empathy building module was effective in improving the empathy level of I year B.Sc. Nursing Students. In this study the Student Nurses level of empathy has increased after the administration of Empathy Building Module. Our study leads to further research pathways regarding the empathy level follow-up maintained in other years