Wu Yijin
School of Translation Studies/Editorial Office for Medical Humanities in the Developing World, Qufu Normal University, No.80, Yantaibei Road, Donggang District, Rizhao, China.
BMC Nurs. 2021 Jan 12;20(1):18. doi: 10.1186/s12912-021-00535-0.
Considerable attention has been drawn to empathy in nursing and the concept of empathy has firmly been embedded in nursing discourse. However, little has been known about the details of how nurses express empathy to their patients. In this study, we aim to conduct a qualitative study of actual nurse-patient conversations through which empathy was achieved.
The data in this study was based on audio-recording of sessions of conversations between participating nurses and patients in two Chinese hospitals. The participants in this study involved 6 female nurses and 14 patients. Based on Bachelor's (1988) categorization of empathy, this study described and analyzed the actual empathic sequences in nursing conversations in an attempt to demonstrate how nursing empathy was interactionally achieved using the method of conversation analysis. Conversation analysis (CA), focusing on the study of talk in interaction, is a useful method for the qualitative analysis of empathic talk in nursing.
By drawing on prior theoretical work as well as on empathic sequence in nursing, this study described and analyzed some of the conversational resources nurses and patients used in achieving empathy. It has been shown that empathy can be interactionally and sequentially achieved in actual sequences of talk. Specifically, nursing empathy is a collaboratively constructed action instead of the nurse's own committed action, which is produced in specific interactional contexts.
Conversation analysis is a very useful method for describing and analyzing the nurse-patient interaction, especially for studying empathy in nursing care. The sequences in this study present example of exemplary empathic interaction between nurses and patients, which might shed some light on how nurses express empathy to their patients. Also, this study could help to increase the understanding of the mirco-process of empathy in nursing and contribute to improving nursing communicative skills.
护理中的同理心已引起广泛关注,同理心的概念也已牢固地融入护理话语中。然而,对于护士如何向患者表达同理心的具体细节却知之甚少。在本研究中,我们旨在通过对实际实现同理心的护患对话进行定性研究。
本研究的数据基于中国两家医院参与研究的护士与患者之间对话的录音。本研究的参与者包括6名女护士和14名患者。基于巴彻勒(1988年)对同理心的分类,本研究描述并分析了护理对话中实际的同理心序列,试图运用对话分析方法展示护理同理心是如何在互动中实现的。对话分析专注于互动中的谈话研究,是对护理中同理心谈话进行定性分析的有用方法。
通过借鉴先前的理论工作以及护理中的同理心序列,本研究描述并分析了护士和患者在实现同理心时使用的一些对话资源。研究表明,同理心可以在实际的谈话序列中通过互动和顺序实现。具体而言,护理同理心是一种共同构建的行为,而非护士自身的单独行为,它产生于特定的互动情境中。
对话分析是描述和分析护患互动的非常有用的方法,尤其适用于研究护理中的同理心。本研究中的序列展示了护士与患者之间模范性同理心互动的示例,这可能有助于揭示护士如何向患者表达同理心。此外,本研究有助于增进对护理中同理心微观过程的理解,并有助于提高护理沟通技巧。