Empathy is important for improving professional identity in nursing students.

Psychological resilience plays a mediating role between empathy with professional identity in Chinese nursing students.

Mediating results highlight the role of psychological resilience in nursing education.

It is recommended to improve empathy ability and psychological resilience in nursing education.

Previous studies have shown that empathy has a positive impact on the professional identity of nursing students. And developing psychological resilience can improve the professional identity of nursing students. However, studies investigating the mechanism of the relationship between empathy and psychological resilience on professional identity remain few.

Among Chinese nursing students, we sought to determine whether psychological resilience mediates the association between empathy and professional identity.

A total of 495 undergraduate and postgraduate nursing students in a medical university nursing college in Hefei were investigated by demographic data questionnaire, nursing students' empathy scale, nursing students' professional identity questionnaire, and psychological resilience questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the mediating effect of psychological resilience between empathy and the professional identity of nursing students.

The total score of professional identity of nursing students was 57.07 ± 10.38. Psychological resilience (r = 0.316, P < 0.01) and professional identity (r = 0.313, P < 0.01) both had positive correlations with empathy, respectively. Additionally, there was a strong correlation between psychological resilience and professional identity (r = 0.488, P < 0.01). Empathy had an indirect effect on professional identity through psychological resilience, with a direct effect of 0.256 and an indirect effect of 0.145, and the indirect effect accounted for 36.16 % of the total effect.

Nursing educators should pay attention to the cultivation of empathy ability and psychological resilience to enhance nursing students' professional identity.

Nursing

Students

Empathy

Psychological resilience

Professional identity

Mediating effect

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