Nurses in the triage of the emergency department: self-compassion and empathy

OBJECTIVE: to adapt the Consultation and Relational Empathy Measure (Brazilian version) for nurses; to evaluate the concurrence between empathy self-reported by nurses and that perceived by patients; To correlate self-compassion to the empathy self-reported by nurses and perceived by patients. METHOD: seven specialists validated the Consultation and Relational Empathy Measure Nurses (Brazilian version)' adaptation by original author's authorization. A sample with 15 triage nurses and 93 patients they admitted to the Emergency Department of a philanthropic private hospital were interviewed according to the following instruments: Consultation and Relational Empathy Measure – Nurses (Brazilian version) and the Self-Compassion Scale (Brazilian version). RESULTS: the psychometrics properties of Consultation and Relational Empathy Measure – Nurses (Brazilian version) showed appropriate internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0,799). The evaluation of empathy provided by the patients was better than that self-reported by the nurses (p<0,001). The nurses with higher level of self-compassion also showed higher empathy scores (p=0,002). CONCLUSION: our results confirmed the psychometrics properties' adequacy of Consultation and Relational Empathy Measure – Nurses (Brazilian version), allowing to compare empathy scores embased at same parameters. Self-compassion showed to influence self-reported empathy.