Irfan Tramboo
SRINAGAR, Apr 19: A study conducted by doctors and other experts in Psychiatry here has found the nurses of SKIMS Medical Colleges & Hospital (MCH), Bemina to be low on empathy towards the psychiatric patients admitted to the hospital while calling for the necessary interventions to improve the parameter which holds the key in the treatment of such patients.
The study was undertaken to assess the empathic ability of staff nurses of the hospital toward psychiatric clients admitted, while the data has been collected using a standard self-report questionnaire from 90 study subjects.
It revealed that the maximum of study subjects (56.7%) had high empathy levels and concerning the Chi-square test, it was observed that only the work experience and type of family were significantly associated with the empathy level of staff nurses at the level of significance. “Interventions should be done to improve a nurse’s empathy.”
The study titled ‘Empathetic Ability of Staff Nurses towards Psychiatric Clients Admitted in SKIMS Hospital Bemina Srinagar, Kashmir’ has been published in the International Journal of All Research Education and Scientific Methods (IJARESM).
It has been noted that empathy is one of the therapeutic communication techniques for providing comfort to the clients and is the ability to enter into the life of another person, to accurately perceive the person’s current feelings and their meanings, and to communicate this understanding to the person.
“Based on the investigator’s observation and clinical experience and based on studies/literature reviewed, it is evident that empathy on part of staff nurses can lead to better job satisfaction in nurses and better patient satisfaction, especially in psychiatry settings.”
Even though, the study said, empathy can play an important role in improving patient outcomes, there is a dearth of such studies in literature especially related to staff nurses and no such study has been conducted in the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
The findings revealed that a maximum of the study subjects (60%) were in the age group of 30-40 years, (51%) had done GNM/Diploma in Nursing, (58%) belonged to nuclear families. The majority (80%) of the study subjects were Females, (72.2%) had less than 3 years of work experience in Psychiatry.
The main therapeutic tool of nurses, the study noted, is the use of oneself in the interpersonal context and it is also a key communication skill that forms a part of a patient-centred caring relationship.
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