Concept Analysis Report: Empathy in Nursing, Second Semester

This report presents a concept analysis of empathy, a crucial concept in nursing, aiming to clarify its meaning and significance. It begins with an introduction to concept analysis and its stages, followed by a literature review defining empathy from various dictionaries and related concepts like caring and understanding. The report identifies key attributes of empathy, such as understanding and relationship-building, and provides a model case illustrating empathetic nursing care and its positive impact on a patient with schizophrenia. Antecedents, such as the intention to help, and consequences, like stronger relationships and improved well-being, are discussed. The analysis concludes by emphasizing the implications of empathy for nursing practice, highlighting its role in enhancing patient satisfaction, building trust, and improving health outcomes, supported by relevant references.

Running head: CONCEPT ANALYSIS
Concept Analysis
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

CONCEPT ANALYSIS 2
Concept (Empathy)
Introduction
The term ‘concept analysis’ can be defined as the segmentation of a broader concept into
smaller, simpler elements which helps in promoting clarity as well as better understanding of
the concept. It helps to clarify the meaning and significance of the concept which can be used
for future development of the same(Patterson, 2018). The process of concept analysis consist
of different stages such as, identifying a concept name of interest, identification of surrogate
terms which is then preceeded by recognition of the attribution of the concept and;
antecedents and consequences of the concept if possible. Lastly, generating a model case
from the concept(Choi, 2019).
Review of literature
According to Creswell (2005), a literature review “is a written summary of journal articles,
books and other documents that describes the past and current state of information, organizes
the literature into topics and documents a need for a proposed study”. It is the presentation of
what other researchers have already written on a particular subject. The Cambridge dictionary
defines the term empathy as “the ability to share the feelings of someone else or experiences
by imagining what it would like to be in that person’s situation”. According to the Merrium
Webster dictionary, empathy is “the action of understanding, being aware of, or being
sensitive to the thoughts, feelings and experience of other”. The Oxford dictionary define
empathy as “the ability to understand the feelings and experiences of another person”.
Related concepts
The related concepts which are similar to empathy are ‘caring’, ‘understanding’ and ‘being
sensitive’. According to the Cambridge dictionary the term sensitive means “the ability to

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understand what other people needs, being helpful and kind to them’. The Oxford dictionary
defines ‘sensitive’ as “being aware of the feelings of others”.
Attributes
The attributes of the term empathy are “being understanding” and “building a relationship”.
Emapthy is the ability of a person to understand the feelings of the other people and being
able to put himself in their situation. Empathy is all about building a strong relationship based
on trust and friendship with the others, so that they do not hesitate to share their feelings
owing to trust issues. According to Cambridge dictionary, the term understanding is defined
as “a positive relationship between two people in which they feel sympathetic to each other”.
The Oxford dictionary defines the term understanding as “the ability to understand why
people behave in a particular way and to forgive them when they do something wrong”.
Model case
Mrs. Angela Jonathan, a 55 years old female was admitted to the hospital with complains of
auditory hallucination and obsession. On diagnosis, it was found that the woman is suffering
from Schizophrenia which resulted in the retardation of her mental health. She was mostly
found alone in her bed, the nurses and the clinical staffs ignored her due to her talkative
nature and tangentiable thought process. She was often neglected by the nurse, who did not
take proper care of her. One day, one of the nurse came to her bed, sat beside her, held her
hand and greeted with a smile. She asked Mrs. Jonathan “How is your day going? Are you
feeling any better today?”. There was empathy and compassion in the attitude of nurse when
she interacted with Mrs. Jonathan(Sacco & Copel, 2018). Mrs. Jonathan was first shocked to
see someone giving so much attention to her, but later on she felts very comfortable and
relaxed, and shared her feelings, thoughts and experience with the nurse. The nurse listened
carefully to what she said, maintained proper eye contact with her to make her feel that is

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being listened to and her opinions are being valued. The nurse dedicated a significant amount
of time in a day to Mrs. Jonathan and took care of her needs. This resulted in a strong bond
and therapeutic relationship between the nurse and Mrs. Jonathan, which was reflected in her
health condition as she showed great improvement in her mental health and was also very
satisfied(Ozaras & Abaan, 2018).
Antecedents
Antecedent is something which existed before or may logically precede another. Antecedents
are very useful in indentifying the underlying assumptions about the concept being studied.
The antecedent for the term empathy is “the intention to help others” or “having sufficient
knowledge and awareness of the situation of others”(Cuff et al, 2016).
Consequences
Consequence is the outcome or aftermath of a situation. The consequences of empathy is
“creating stronger bond and relationship with the other person, where the relationship is build
on mutual respect and trust”. It makes the person feel happy, relaxed and being supported and
also make them aware of the coping strategies to deal with emotional and mental
stress(Ménage et al, 2017).
Implication for nursing
Empathy is a very crucial aspect in nursing as it has been found to increase patient
satisfaction level and improve their health outcomes. Through empathy the nurse is able to
build a strong bond with the patient, which helps them to understand the issues and concerns
of the patient. This facilitaes better understanding and clarity of thoughts between the patient
and ther nurses. The nurses are also able to assess the condition of the patient better and

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create a care plan taking the cultural values and opinions of the patient in mind. It also makes
the patient feel supported, happy and relaxed, fostering their quick recovery and healing.

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REFERENCE
Choi, S. Y. (2019). Concept Analysis of Empathy. Journal of Korean Academy of
Fundamentals of Nursing, 26(3), 145-154.
Cuff, B. M., Brown, S. J., Taylor, L., & Howat, D. J. (2016). Empathy: A review of the
concept. Emotion Review, 8(2), 144-153.
Ménage, D., Bailey, E., Lees, S., & Coad, J. (2017). A concept analysis of compassionate
midwifery. Journal of advanced nursing, 73(3), 558-573.
Ozaras, G., & Abaan, S. (2018). Investigation of the trust status of the nurse–patient
relationship. Nursing ethics, 25(5), 628-639.
Patterson, J. (2018). Empathy: A Concept Analysis. International Journal for Human
Caring, 22(4), 217-223.
Sacco, T. L., & Copel, L. C. (2018, January). Compassion satisfaction: A concept analysis in
nursing. In Nursing forum (Vol. 53, No. 1, pp. 76-83).