Objective: To determine the levels of empathy in nurses and review the relationship of empathy to anger management.
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted between April 2018 and July 2018. The sample size of the study was 500. The participants were nurses who worked at the university hospital during the study duration and agreed to take part in the study. Questionnaire forms that were prepared in line with the study objective were completed by the nurses under supervision. The Jefferson Scale of Empathy was used to assess levels of empathy and the Novaco Anger Inventory was utilized to determine anger management levels. The Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and Spearman’s Correlation Analysis were
used for statistical analyses. Statistical significance was accepted as p<0.05.
Results: The study group consisted of 391 (78.2%) females and 109 (21.8%) males. Their ages ranged from 21-55 years with a mean age of 34.05±7.84 years. The scores obtained from the Scale of Empathy by the nurses ranged from 79-116 with a mean score of 98.54±6.17. It was determined that women who were educated at the School of Health, held a postgraduate degree, and whose family income status was good tended to obtain higher scores on the scale of empathy. No relationship was found between the levels of empathy and age, marital status, conscious career choice, total period of employment in nursing, current work unit, shift work, and weekly working time. There was no relationship between the scores obtained from the scale of empathy and the anger inventory.
Conclusion: Our study found a medium level of empathy among nurses. It was determined that women who were educated at the School of Health and held a postgraduate degree had a higher level of empathy. No relationship was found between the level of empathy and anger management. It would be beneficial to conduct activities to provide information on anger management and improve levels of empathy in nurses. More extensive studies are required on this matter.
Cite this article as: Özdemir K, Sevimli Güler D, Şahin S, Ünsal A, Kuni F. Assesment of Empathy and Anger Management of Nurses. Journal of Health Science and Profession 2019; 6(3): 470-8.