The relationship between anger levels and empathic tendencies in nurses

This research was conducted as a descriptive study in order to determine the relationship between levels of anger and empathic tendencies in nurses. The population of the study consisted of 464 nurses working in two state hospitals in Batman city center between April and September 2017. The study was conducted with 370 nurses who voluntarily agreed to participate in the study. For data collection, "Personal Information Form", "Empathic Tendency Scale (ETS)" and "Trait Anger and Anger Expression Style Scale (TAAESS)" were used. The data were analyzed with SPSS Windows version 24.0 software package. Student t test, Mann Whitney U, One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Kruskall Wallis test were used for the evaluation. The mean total score of the nurses were as found as follows; Empathic Tendency Scale 66.43 ± 7.02, TAAESS trait anger subscale 21.26 ± 5.38, TAAESS anger-in subscale 14.43 ± 5.38, TAAESS anger-out subscale 15.74 ± 4.32, and TAAESS anger control subscale 22.66 ± 5.01. It was determined that the nurses' empathic tendency, trait anger and anger out levels were moderate, anger control level was good while anger in level was low. It was found that there was a negative correlation (p <0.01) between Empathic Tendency Scale and trait anger, anger in and anger out subscales while there was a positive correlation with anger control (p <0.01). There was a statistically significant difference between the nurses' economic status, healthy expression of anger, having received training on anger management, the effect of anger on professional relationships and the effect of anger on nurses' approach to patients and the total scores of Empathic Tendency Scale, Trait Anger and Anger Expression Style Scale (p <0.05). It is thought that practices aimed at increasing the empathic tendencies of nurses will contribute to anger control. Keywords: Nurses, Empathic Tendency, Anger and Anger Expression Style