Course Description

From the patient’s perspective, the experience of communicating with healthcare professionals varies widely by demographics and individual patient characteristics (DeVoe et al., 2009).  Providers who maintain a relational approach to care, demonstrate empathy and work collaboratively with patients consistently produce higher patient satisfaction (Zolnierek & Dimatteo, 2009).  Overall, patients prefer to receive care from nurses who they feel understand them (Jani et al., 2012).  Many psychotherapeutic interventions in nursing also depend upon empathy and rapport for successful implementation.  Patients who feel understood are more likely to disclose important information about their health (Zolnierek & Dimatteo, 2009), participate in care planning conversations (Calvo et al., 2014; Nienhuis et al., 2018), and adhere to treatment recommendations (Derksen et al., 2013, 2017). 

Nurses also acknowledge the importance of empathy in self-care, with research showing significant promise for empathy-based practices to prevent burnout and emotional exhaustion among nurses (Dulko & Kohal, 2022; von Harscher et al., 2018).  While empathy and rapport are critical to nursing care, both factors continue to be eroded within our healthcare system.  This course equips Registered Nurses with a comprehensive understanding of empathy, rapport  and trust building skills across diverse practice settings.  Best practices will be utilized to review how to adapt communication for specific clinical contexts, reviewing how to adapt empathy-building interventions to address patients needs across a range of practice environments.

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