Analysis of the current situation and influencing factors of empathy for pain among nursing interns: A multi-center cross-sectional study

This study investigates the current situation of empathy for pain and analyze its influencing factors among nursing interns. This study is a multi-center cross-sectional study. A cluster sampling method was used to recruit 423 nursing interns from 4 tertiary hospitals in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China from September to October 2024 as participants, and the general information questionnaire, Chinese version of the empathy for pain scale and meaning in life questionnaire were used to investigate. Pearson correlation analysis was used to analyze the relationship between variables. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to explore the influencing factors of empathy for pain among nursing interns. The score of empathy for pain was (3.02 ± 0.68). The score of meaning in life was (43.55 ± 9.42). Empathy of pain was positively correlated with meaning in life and all dimensions (all P < .01). Multiple regression results showed that received humanistic care related courses education, had operating room internship experience, had pain experience, interpersonal relationship in internship work, doting and ignoring family parenting patterns and sense of meaning in life were the main influencing factors of empathy for pain (all P < .01), which explained 46.50% of the variance. The empathy for pain of nursing interns is at a high level, but it still needs to be further improved. The key influencing factors including humanistic care education, operating room internship experience, pain experience, interpersonal relationship in internship work, family parenting patterns, and meaning in life. Integrating these factors into nursing curricula may enhance empathy.