Empathic nurse-patient relationships in hospice nursing.

This naturalistic study explored the development of empathic nurse-patient relationships between 10 terminally ill adult hospice patients and their hospice nurses. The data were collected and analyzed from the hospice patient's perspective. Content analysis and the constant comparative method were used to analyze the transcripts of the audio taped interviews. The findings suggest that the development of empathic relationships between hospice nurses and patients was a process that occurred most often over time and involved a reciprocal sharing. Specific patient needs, nurses' functions, attributes, and the patient's reciprocity contributed to the development of the empathic relationship.