The influence of emotion regulation on empathy among nursing professionals. An Italian study

The current investigation is an effort to examine the relationship between emotion regulation strategies in nurses working in several Italian hospitals and their empathy. Emotion regulation is a process by which an individual is able to modulate his or her emotional experiences. It encompasses the ability to filter emotions and engage in healthy emotion management strategies and provides additional information about how individuals adapt to stressors. Nursing professionals are prone to stress in their work. Among the main causes of stress, is the contact with suffering and death and lack of preparedness to deal with the emotional needs of patients and their families. Despite empathy is an essential characteristic required of people concerned with managing relationships, supporting social events, and improving the of nurse-patient relationships, nowadays there aren’t studies evaluating the relationship between these two variables. A total of 116 nursing professionals participated in the study (96 female). The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) were applied to the sample. Beyond descriptive statistics, analyses of variance, mean differences and regression analyses were computed. Finding shows there is no significative difference in demographic variables such as sex and age on emotion regulation. Based on the results of regression analysis, findings show a differential effect of the DERS components in empathy dimensions. Emotion regulation has shown for nurses a facilitative factor for empathy. Our findings support the hypothesis that nurses with better emotion regulation strategies make easier the adoption of the psychological point of view of others and the experience of "other-oriented" feelings of sympathy and concern for unfortunate others These comments could be especially important in training future nursing professionals in these abilities.