Are parental rearing patterns and learning burnout correlated with empathy amongst undergraduate nursing students?

Objective: Empathy can help establish harmonious nurse-patient relationships. We aimed to assess the status of empathy, and explore the relationship between learning burnout, parental rearing patterns and empathy amongst nursing students.

Method: A questionnaire survey that employed the Learning Burnout Scale, the Short-Form Egna Minnenav Barndoms Uppfostran (s-EMBU) and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy was conducted amongst 562 nursing students. The data were analysed on the basis of descriptive statistic and correlation analysis was used.

Results: Empathy is negatively correlated with learning burnout, parental rejection and overprotection and showed no positive correlation with parental emotional warmth.

Conclusions: Educators should pay attention to nursing students' feelings and learning burnout status and take positive measures to improve the empathy level of the students. Positive parental rearing patterns also help cultivate empathy.