Empathy and cultural competence in clinical nurses: A structural equation modelling approach.

BACKGROUND: Forgiveness has the potential to resolve painful feelings arising from nurse-patient conflicts. It would be useful to evaluate direct and indirect important factors which are related to forgiveness in order to design interventions that try to facilitate forgiveness. AIM/OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the intermediating role of empathy in the cultural competence-forgiveness association among nurses using structural equation modeling. RESEARCH DESIGN: The research applied a cross-sectional correlational design. PARTICIPANTS AND RESEARCH CONTEXT: The study included 380 nurses eight hospitals in southern Iran. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: The Ethics and Research Committee of Birjand University of Medical Sciences approved the study protocol. The voluntary nature of participation was explained consent was obtained from participants, and anonymity was guaranteed. FINDINGS: Most of the participants were married and female and fell in the 20- to 30-year-old category. Most of them (89.5%) had a working experience of 1-10 years. The proposed model showed that nurses' empathy intermediated the association between nurses' cultural competence and forgiveness which has fitted the data acceptably (root mean square error approximation = 0.070; comparative fit index = 0.993; goodness-of-fit index = 0.983; and χ2/df = 2.85). CONCLUSION: Empathy skills and cultural competence training were essential for interventions aimed at increasing the tendency to forgive patients. In such interventions, planners should aim at increasing nurses' cultural competence in order to enhance their empathy toward patients, which can, in turn, lead to a greater wish to forgive patients.

The impact of self-administered acupressure on sleep quality and fatigue among patients with migraine: A randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Poor sleep and fatigue are among the most common complaints of patients with migraine. These problems can lead to different negative consequences such as headaches. This study aimed to examine the impacts of self-administered acupressure on sleep quality and fatigue among patients with migraine. METHODS: This double-blind randomized controlled trial was conducted in 2016 on 76 patients who suffered from migraine without aura. Patients were conveniently selected from the neurology clinic of Valiasr (PBUH) teaching hospital and randomly allocated to either an acupressure (n = 38) or a sham acupressure group (n = 38) group. Data collection instruments were a demographic questionnaire, Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, and Fatigue Severity Scale. Patients in the acupressure and the sham acupressure groups were trained to apply acupressure on respectively acupoints and sham points thrice weekly at bedtime for four consecutive weeks. The data were analyzed through the Chi-square, the independent-sample t, the paired-sample t, and the ANCOVA tests at the significance level of less than 0.05. RESULTS: After controlling sleep quality mean scores at baseline, no significant difference was found between the sleep quality of the two groups after intervention (P > 0.05). The mean scores of fatigue significantly decreased in both acupressure and sham acupressure groups (P < 0.05). However, the decrease in the acupressure group was significantly greater than in the sham acupressure group (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: As a noninvasive non-pharmacological therapy, acupressure can significantly reduce fatigue among patients with migraine.