A study on nursing student's empathy competency, resilience, nursing professionalism, and clinical practice adaptation

Objectives The purpose of this study is to identify differences and correlations between variables such as empathy competency and resilience, nursing professionalism, and clinical practice adaptation according to the general characteristics of nursing students. Methods Structured questionnaires were distributed to 260 students in the 3rd and 4th grades of nursing at four universities, and 252 copies of data were used for the final analysis. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, independent sample t-test, One-way ANOVA, Scheffé post-test, Person's correlation analysis, and the SPSS 25.0 program were used for tool reliability. Results According to the descriptive statistical results of the main variables, the average of empathy competency was 4.11 out of 5, the average of resilience was 3.95 out of 5, the average of nursing professionals was 4.04 out of 5, and the average of clinical practice adaptation was 3.89 out of 5. Looking at the correlation results, resilience was statistically significant with empathy competency (r=.764, p<.001), nursing professionals were statistically significant with empathy competency (r=.606, p<.001), and resilience (r=.591, p<.001). Clinical practice adaptation showed statistically significant positive (+) correlation with empathy competency (r=.650, p<.01), resilience (r=.735, p<.001), and nursing professionals (r=.608, p<.001). Conclusions Since nursing students' empathy competency and resilience have a positive correlation with nursing professions and clinical practice adaptation, it is necessary to apply programs to improve nursing students' empathy competency and resilience. In addition, nursing professionals and clinical practice adaptation have important significance in improving nursing practice and are becoming basic elements of qualitative nursing.