Edinburgh Napier University

  Empathy and compassion are expected in all nurses and required for person-centred care. However, common public discourse has tended to focus on patient experiences of nursing care that lacked empathy and which subsequently led to negative health outcomes.
From 2012-15, a critical ethnography was conducted in an acute surgical setting in a regional Queensland hospital, which found that: when nurses display everyday acts of kindness, patients reported feeling a sense of social connection, and understanding; and that whilst nurses remained philosophically committed to empathetic, compassionate nursing practice they often found themselves in positions of moral distress and were unable to consistently practice in this way. Efficiency and task completion prioritised over people, illustrating how compassion and empathy were effectively eroded by the prevailing culture of technical rationalism.
This presentation will explore the study’s method and findings and suggest recommendations for health care system change. These include the need for workers to be aware of defensive practices that can occur when caring ideals clash with the pressures of practice; and the need for nurses to be supported in the performance of emotional labour essential to empathetic nursing care and person centred practice.

Publication: Don’t nurses care anymore? An investigation into the apparent decline of empathy in nursing.. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303826253_Don%27t_nurses_care_anymore_An_investigation_into_the_apparent_decline_of_empathy_in_nursing [accessed Apr 4, 2017].