Patient-nurse interactions: relationships between person characteristics, empathy, content of communication, and patients' emotional reactions

Relationships between antecedent person variables (sex and age), empathic understanding, content of communication, and patients' emotional reactions were studied in 3200 patient-assistant nurse dyadic interactions. The sample consisted of 32 psychiatric patients (20 males and 12 females, mean age: 61 years) and eight female assistant nurses at a nursing-home in Sweden. Four assistant nurses were younger (25 years old or less) and four were older (45 years old or more). All interactions were regular morning meetings at which the patient's activity plans for the day were discussed. These meetings were held in each patient's private room, and lasted for about 15 min. High empathic understanding on part of the helper covaried with more communication of "everyday character" and communication dealing with "personal and emotional qualities", with less communication dealing with "facts and practical issues", and with a more cheerful emotional state among the patients during the encounters. Male patients were more cheerful during encounters with younger assistant nurses while female patients were more cheerful when interacting with older assistant nurses. Helpers with higher scores on empathic understanding seemed to have a higher awareness of relational history.