The Attitudes of Nursing and DO Students toward Health Caretaker-Patient Relationships

Signature Grand, Davie, Florida, USA

Objective. To investigate the attitudes of Nursing and Doctor of Osteopathic (DO) Medicine students toward the health caretaker-patient relationship. Background. Hojat (2005) emphasized the importance of health care professionals’ empathy in improving several patient outcomes. Although patients value good medical judgment, it is important for them that their physician has strong interpersonal skills, is easy to talk to and take their concern seriously (Obesity & Fitness, 2004). Cooper (2005) indicated that nurses are perceived and may be expected to be more nurturing than physicians. Methods. An instrument was developed to assess the importance that participants attribute to knowing about a patient’s personal life, their attitudes toward caring characteristics in health care professionals, and their interest in participating in organized group discussions. The instrument was distributed to 61 (51.3%) Nursing and 58 (48.7%) DO graduate students. Results. Nurses had a lower empathy/caring score than DO students (M= 24.40, SD= 3.19 and M = 26.09, SD= 2.30), t (102.01) = -3.205, p< .01, and were more interested in participating in organized group discussions with colleagues (M= 16.80, SD= 2.57 and M = 15.31, SD= 2.89), t (116) = 2.96, p< .01. Both groups differed significantly in a few items that assessed the personal information they would like to know about their patients. Conclusion. Nursing and DO students differed in some of the areas assessed, even after controlling for demographic differences (e.g., gender) among groups. The results of this study can help to understand the perceptions about professional-patient relationships in different groups of health professionals.