Empathy and Humanistic Care Ability in Oncology Nurses: The Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence

To investigate the level of humanistic care ability of oncology nurses, its association with empathy and emotional intelligence, and the mediative role of emotional intelligence on empathy and humanistic caring ability.

This was a cross-sectional study conducted in a cancer hospital in China.

We enrolled a total of 1189 oncology nurses from several cancer hospitals from December 2023 to January 2024. All participants completed three general questionnaires: the Caring Ability Inventory, the Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professionals and the Emotional Intelligence Scale.

We failed to secure permission from the copyright holder before using the JSE in our project. After contacting the copyright holder, scoring methods and use of the scale were verified and used without modification. Retrospective permission has been received from Thomas Jefferson University.

The overall scores for the three scales were 202.35 ± 23.89, 112.38 ± 18.85 and 137.49 ± 17.81, respectively. A positive correlation was detected between caring ability, empathy and emotional intelligence (r = 0.741, p < 0.001; r = 0.577, p < 0.001). And emotional intelligence mediates the association between empathy and caring ability in oncology nurses (0.233, p < 0.001). The total and direct effect were also significant (0.825, p < 0.001; 0.592, p < 0.001).

The study findings indicated that oncology nurses exhibit a moderate level of caring ability. Emotional intelligence mediates the relationship between empathy and caring ability, at least in part. Therefore, an increase in the level of emotional intelligence in oncology nurses could improve their caring ability.

When designing training to improve humanistic care, we recommend the integration of specific training relating to empathy and emotional intelligence into the training system.

Oncology patients experience multiple forms of distress and require high-quality humanistic care. This study identified a moderate association between empathy and emotional intelligence. Our findings provide further recommendations for nurse leaders in medical institutions relating to how the humanistic care ability of oncology nurses can be improved by specific training in empathy and emotional intelligence.

This study was reported using the STROBE Checklist for cross-sectional studies.

Nurse leaders organised this survey in their own hospital.