NURSING AND MIDWIFERY STUDENTS’ PERCEIVED CARE BEHAVIORS AND EMPATHY TENDENCIES

This study aims to determine nursing and midwifery students'care behaviors and their empathic tendencies. 252 students (188nursing, 64 midwifery) were participated to this study. Most of thestudents participating in this study are women (201 women, 51 men).In this study, ‘Socio-Demographic Survey Form’, ‘Caring AssessmentQuestionnaire (Care-Q)’ and ‘Empathic Tendency Scale’ were conductedas data collection tools. The data were analyzed using descriptivestatistics, Kruskal Wallis test and Mann-Whitney U test. Resultsindicated that there was no significant difference between male andfemale students in terms of their empathy tendencies. In addition,although empathy tendencies of nursing students were higher thanmidwifery ones, there was no significant difference between nursing andmidwifery students in terms of their empathy tendencies.A significantmean difference was found between the empathy tendencies of thestudents who chose the profession willingly and unintentionally. Notsurprisingly, the empathy tendency of the students who chose theirprofessions willingly was higher than those who do not. Whether thestudents' empathy tendencies change according to their grade levelswas also investigated. No significant difference was found between theempathic tendencies of 2nd-3rd grade, 3rd-4th grade and 2nd-4th gradestudents. It is noteworthy that the 2nd grade students' empathytendency was found to be higher than the other class of students. Nosignificant mean difference was found between female and malestudents in terms of their perception of care behavior for each subgroup of Care-Q and total Care-Q scores. On the other hand, significant meandifference was found between nursing and midwifery students in termsof total Care-Q scores in favor of nursing students. In addition,significant mean difference was found between those students for each‘accessibles’ and ‘explains and facilitates’ subgroups of Care-Q in favorof nursing students. There was no significant mean difference betweenthe students’ perceptions of care behavior according to their careerchoice. In other words, students' willingness/eager or random selection(career preferences) of their department they are studying had noimpact on their care evaluation behaviors. Students' perceptions of carebehavior were examined according to their department and significantmean difference was determined between the 2nd-3rd grade and 3rd-4thgrade students in terms of the accessibility sub-dimension of Care-Qtest.