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Journal article
Nursing students' empathy in response to biological and psychosocial attributions of depression: A vignette-based cross-cultural study
Nurse education today, Vol.141, 106309
2024
PMID: 39025001
Abstract
Background
Empathy is vital for quality nursing care in acute mental health settings. Although different explanations of mental illnesses shape mental health clinicians' empathy towards people with mental illnesses, it is unclear how such findings translate to the culturally diverse nursing context.
Aim
The study investigated nursing students' empathy towards people with depression and their perceived clinical utility of biological and psychosocial explanations of depression in Australia and Singapore, focusing on two factors of cultural difference: relational mobility and cultural tightness.
Design
We used a cross-sectional research design with a repeated-measures component.
Participants
The sample included 211 nursing students from Australia and Singapore. Participants were predominantly female (81 %), with ages ranging from 18 to 57 years (M = 26.51, SD = 7.61).
Methods
Participants completed a vignette-based online questionnaire containing measures of empathy, perceived clinical utility, relational mobility, and cultural tightness.
Results
Nursing students' empathy in response to the biological and psychosocial explanations of depression differed in Australia (biological: M = 2.96, SD = 0.89, 95 % CI [2.80, 3.13]; psychosocial: M = 3.56, SD = 0.91, [3.39, 3.73]) but not in Singapore (biological: M = 3.05, SD = 0.91, [2.87, 3.23]; psychosocial: M = 3.25, SD = 0.93, [3.06, 3.43]). Relational mobility mediated cross-cultural variances in empathy, b = −0.16, SE = 0.06, 95 % CI [−0.29, −0.05], and perceptions of clinical utility, b = −0.08, SE = 0.05, [−0.20, −0.00], when depression was explained psychosocially.
Conclusions
Nursing students' empathy and perceived clinical utility of explanations of depression are shaped differently across cultures in part due to relational mobility and cultural tightness. As such, embedding cultural awareness education in nursing curricula to address any culturally rooted biases towards people with mental illnesses may present a promising avenue to optimise nursing students' empathy towards people with mental illnesses.
Details
- Title
- Nursing students' empathy in response to biological and psychosocial attributions of depression: A vignette-based cross-cultural study
- Authors/Creators
- Katrina Hon - Curtin UniversityTakeshi Hamamura - Curtin UniversityEric Lim - Murdoch University, School of NursingYong Shian Shawn Goh - National University of Singapore
- Publication Details
- Nurse education today, Vol.141, 106309
- Publisher
- Elsevier Ltd.
- Number of pages
- 8
- Grant note
- Australian Government Research Training Program Stipend
K. Hon is supported by the Australian Government Research Training Program Stipend.
- Identifiers
- 991005731786807891
- Copyright
- © 2024 The Authors.
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Nursing
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Citation topics
- 1 Clinical & Life Sciences
- 1.21 Psychiatry
- 1.21.1363 Mental Health Stigma
- Web Of Science research areas
- Education, Scientific Disciplines
- Nursing
- ESI research areas
- Clinical Medicine