Nurse-Expressed Empathy, Patient Outcomes, and Development of a Middle-Range Theory

Purpose : To demonstrate how a middle-range theory was developed and tested through research that examined relationships between nurse-expressed empathy and two patient outcomes: patient-perceived empathy and patient distress.
Significance: Nurse-patient relationships are the basis for all nursing care and empathy is an important aspect of these relationships. Research is needed, however, to determine the patient outcomes that are related to the empathy of nurses.
Organizing Framework: Orlando's (I 96 1, 1972) nursing model. Scope: 140 subjects, 70 staff RNs and 70 patients from hospital medical-surgical acute care units. Each nurse-subject completed two measures of nurse-expressed empathy and each patient-subject completed a measure of perceived empathy and two measures of distress.
Findings: Negative relationships were found between nurse-expressed empathy and patient distress (r = -.71, p < .001), and between patient-perceived empathy and patient distress (r = -.71, p < .007). A moderate positive relationship was found between nurse-expressed empathy and patient-perceived empathy (r = .35 to .47, p < .05).
Conclusions: A model can be tested when propositions theoretically linked to the model are empirically tested. This study's findings demonstrated support for relationships proposed in Orlando's model.