The modulating role of gender and aggression in emotional reactions of nursing students: A cross‐sectional study

Abstract

Aims To examine whether and to what extent emotion reactions of nursing students are affected by emotional features inherent in nursing care situations, focusing on gender and aggression. Background How individual characteristics of nurse students interact with emotional demands inherent in nursing practice and modulate the way they are perceived and acted upon may have an impact on quality of patient care. Design Cross‐sectional study, conducted from May to September 2013. Methods Nursing students (N = 157) of the Nursing Degree Course of School of Medicine, Bologna University, completed self‐report questionnaires assessing individual differences (i.e. aggression, personality traits, empathy) and evaluated emotion‐inducing pictures of pleasant, unpleasant and neutral content. Results Gender and verbal aggression level modulate emotional responses of nursing students: females rated negative picture categories as significantly less pleasant than male students; those with high compared to low verbal aggression levels rated negative stimuli as less arousing and more pleasant. Verbal aggression level is positively related to physical aggression and anger and negatively related to emotional stability and empathy in both males and females. Conclusion High verbal aggression scores seem to be associated with attenuated arousal in response to emotional stimuli and decreased aversive reaction towards negative content pictures, indicating a potential facilitation of approach and management of adverse events strictly connected to nursing practice. Nonetheless, aggression can represent a risk factor in nursing practice. Negative implications of verbal aggression are highlighted together with the need for tailoring education programs aimed at enhancing emotion regulation and aggression management skills in nursing context.

Specific mindfulness traits protect against negative effects of trait anxiety on medical student wellbeing during high-pressure periods

“…Such pressures are not borne equally by male and female students though, as indicated by the significant gender differences revealing females to be more prone to poor wellbeing outcomes compared to male students. Females also scored higher than males in trait anxiety and lower in mindfulness facets of Nonjudging and Nonreacting to experiences, suggesting a higher anxiety susceptibility in this subgroup, which is in line with independent studies on lay persons and nursing student samples (Dyrbye et al, 2006;Fino et al, 2018;Soysa & Wilcomb, 2015;Zeng et al, 2019).…”

Professional framing and emotional stability modulate facial appearance biases in nursing students

“…They are also consistent with Colonnello et al (2019), who found that medical students can modulate avoidance/approach responses to emotion expressions of untrustworthy people by means of an aware activation of their own relational resources in the healthcare professional context. Finally, results from correlations with personality traits allow us to identify individual characteristics of caretaking professionals that could facilitate or pose barriers to the provision of impartial care, consistent with the personality modulation of emotional reactions of nursing students we previously found in an earlier study (Fino, Di Campli, Patrignani, & Mazzetti, 2019). This is especially important for untrustworthy‐looking patients who would trigger, most likely involuntarily, untrusting and avoidant behaviors in the caretaker.…”

Burnout, Attachment and Mentalization in Nursing Students and Nurse Professionals

“…Among healthcare professions, nursing is perhaps the most demanding as it requires delivering compassionate care in often stressful and adverse conditions and to effectively navigate complex interpersonal relations with patients, families and other healthcare professionals [10,11]. If more insecurely attached individuals cope less well with stress, are tendentially ill-equipped in mentalization capacities that facilitate interpersonal relationships and are more prone to burnout, then adult attachment insecurities and poor mentalization capacity may be expected to predict burnout in nurse professionals.…”