The effect of context- based learning in psychiatric nursing internship on empathy skills with the patient of nursing students

Apprenticeship in mental health can cause feelings of stress and anxiety of nursing students before the onset of apprenticeship and serves as an obstacle to empathy and to establish a therapeutic relationship with the patient. The present study aimed to determine the effect of context-based learning (CBL) in psychiatric nursing training on empathy with the patient of nursing students.
This clinical trial was conducted involving 97 nursing students. Students were assigned randomly to intervention and control groups. For students in intervention group, was conducted CBL (1. position test, 2. self-learning, 3. acquiring new information and 4. thinking and contemplation) during two weeks of internship. The student's empathy skills were measured with Jefferson's empathy questionnaire, and Spielberger anxiety questionnaire before the internship and the last day of the internship. Data using SPSS software 16 and independent t-test, paired t-test, and exact chi-square were analyzed.
The mean age of students was 21.6 ± 1.8 years in intervention group and 21.7±2.4 in control group. After the intervention, the result of independent t-test showed the mean score of empathy skills in the intervention group was statistically significantly higher than the control group (P The results of this study indicate the positive effect of context-based learning on improving the empathy with patients of nursing students in psychiatric unit. Therefore, it is recommended that this method be used in nursing student nursing internship