Articles: empathy.
-
Empathy allows emotional psychological inference about other person's mental states and feelings in social contexts. We aimed at specifying the common and differential neural mechanisms of "self"- and "other"-related attribution of emotional states using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. Subjects viewed faces expressing emotions with direct or averted gaze and either focused on their own emotional response to each face (self-task) or evaluated the emotional state expressed by the face (other-task). ⋯ The differential engagement of the MPFC, the PCC/precuneus, and temporo-parietal regions in the self-task indicates that these structures act as key players in the evaluation of one's own emotional state during empathic face-to-face interaction. Activation of mirror neurons in a task relying on empathic abilities without explicit task-related motor components supports the view that mirror neurons are not only involved in motor cognition but also in emotional interpersonal cognition. An interplay between ToM and mirror neuron mechanisms may hold for the maintenance of a self-other distinction during empathic interpersonal face-to-face interactions.
-
Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract · Aug 2007
Editorial CommentAltruism, doctors, and the art of medicine.
-
Professionalism affects the quality of medical care in terms of clinical outcomes, safety, and service. Although often talked about by physicians, professionalism is important for all who are engaged in clinical care. In our continuous effort to improve quality at Mayo Clinic, we hypothesized that patient satisfaction was affected by the professionalism of the allied health staff. ⋯ We found patient satisfaction with the allied health staff increased from 71% to 77% after the training. We also saw improvement in each of the individual PLEASE CARE attributes. This demonstrates that enhancement of professionalism among allied health staff can have a positive effect on the experience of patients.
-
J Psychiatr Ment Health Nurs · Aug 2007
Measuring nurse attitudes towards deliberate self-harm: the Self-Harm Antipathy Scale (SHAS).
Most mental health nurses engage at some point with clients who harm themselves and these nurses often experience strong negative emotional reactions. Prolonged engagement with relapsing clients can lead to antipathy, and 'malignant alienation'. The study reported here has the aim of developing a brief, robust instrument for assessing nurse attitudes in this area. ⋯ It has acceptable face validity, good internal consistency and some evidence of good test-retest reliability. It discriminates effectively between criterion groups. Overall this is evidence for the complexity of nurses' responses to this client group but such complex attitudes can still be assessed using a relatively brief structured instrument.
-
This paper explores the ways family members reconstruct meaning through seizing possibilities for positive caregiving in nursing homes. ⋯ By highlighting what is attributed significance by families, a critical examination of the difficult issues which obstruct the development of meaningful partnerships among nurses, family and their relatives is facilitated. In particular, an examination of tensions at an ideological level supports the need for future research to focus its efforts on examining the ways of implementing nursing care that facilitates partnerships that incorporate and build upon positive and equal relations among staff, families and residents in the context of the nursing home setting.