The effect of drama-supported, patient role-play experience on empathy and altruism levels in nursing students: A randomized controlled study*,**

Aim: This study aims to determine the effect of drama-supported, patient role-play experiences on the empathy and altruism levels of nursing students.Background: Empathy, one of the most important skills of the nursing profession, has an important place in the patient-nurse relationship. To be empathetic, which is acknowledged as the most basic motivation of altruistic behavior, requires recognizing emotional states and understanding the needs of others.Design: The format of this study was a pre-test-post-test, regular parallel-group, randomized, controlled experiment.Methods: The study data were collected between October 2021 and February 2022. The research was carried out with second-year students at Necmettin Erbakan University, Faculty of Nursing, who did not have any history of hospitalization or any chronic diseases. All subjects agreed to participate in the study (n = 52, intervention group=26, control group 26). Data were collected using a Descriptive Characteristics Form, the Altruism Scale and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy for Nursing Students (JSENS). After a three-hour drama workshop, partic-ipants in the intervention group acted out the role of a bed-bound patient in the laboratory environment and no intervention was applied to the control group. A series of Mixed ANOVAs were conducted for the analysis of the data.Results: The mean age of participants was 19.94 years (SD = +/- 1.31) and 83.7 % of the participants were women. The intervention group showed a significant increase in altruism compared with the control group, as evidenced by higher scores in the Altruism Scale Total Score and a significant group*time interaction effect. However, in the JSENS Total Score, including the perspective taking and standing in patient's shoes sub-dimensions, no differ-ences were observed based on group, time and group * time interactions.Conclusion: The patient role-play experience increased the empathy and altruism levels of nursing students, but the effect was not evident at the three-month follow-up.