Digital Empathy in Nursing: Developing a Situated Model for Compassionate Care in Technology-Mediated Environments

Digital transformation is reshaping contemporary nursing practice, troubling long-held assumptions about empathy as something enacted primarily through physical co-presence, touch, and embodied interaction. As care increasingly unfolds through telehealth, electronic systems, and artificial intelligence-supported platforms, empathy can no longer be assumed to function in stable or uniform ways. Rather, digital empathy emerges as a contested nursing concern that raises philosophical, ethical, and professional questions about presence, authenticity, and moral responsibility in technologically mediated care. Grounded in humanistic nursing theory, particularly the work of Watson and Paterson and Zderad, this paper approaches empathy as a moral and relational orientation central to nursing identity rather than a technical communication skill. It argues that empathy must be understood as situated, shaped by the technological, organizational, and ethical contexts in which care is delivered. To support this conceptual reframing, the Situated Model of Digital Empathy is introduced as a heuristic that illuminates the dynamic interrelationships among humanistic foundations, technology-mediated processes, and relational outcomes in nursing practice. By engaging digital empathy as an evolving and context-sensitive expression of nursing's ethical commitments, this paper contributes to ongoing inquiry into how caring, compassion, and professional identity are sustained amid the expanding presence of digital technologies. Trial Registration: This study was not a clinical trial and does not require registration.