The impact of an empathy education programme on empathy, communication skills and emotional competency in nursing students: A quasi-experimental study.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of an empathy education programme on the empathy, communication skills and emotional competency of fourth-year undergraduate nursing students in Korea.

Background: Empathy is crucial for building rapport with patients and supporting person-centred care. There is a need to integrate a sustainable empathy education programme into the nursing curriculum.

Methods: This quasi-experimental study assigned 50 fourth-year nursing students from two universities in Korea to experimental and control groups. Methods: The experimental group was exposed to an 8-week empathy programme, with 90-minute weekly sessions. The program included self-understanding, understanding others and therapeutic communication skills. Data were collected via questionnaires on empathy, communication skills and emotional competency at baseline, post-test and follow-up.

Results: The experimental group showed significant improvements in empathy, communication skills and emotional competency, with a sustained impact at the four-week follow-up.

Conclusions: The empathy education programme effectively enhanced empathy, communication and emotional competency in nursing students, serving as a valuable educational tool at the undergraduate level.