A behavioral comparison of the helping styles of nursing students, psychotherapists, crisis interveners, and untrained individuals

✍ Scribed by Muriel B. Ryden; Patricia R. McCarthy; Marsha L. Lewis; Connie Sherman

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 408 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1532-8228
• DOI: 10.1016/0883-9417(91)90020-6

✦ Synopsis

Helping styles of nursing students were compared with those of subjects in a prior study (17 psychotherapists, 12 crisis interveners, and 15 untrained people). Subjects were 30 junior-year college students in the second part of a two-course sequence in interpersonal relations. The subjects were videotaped in a 3-minute interaction with a simulated client. An experienced psychotherapist who was trained in the use of the Helping Skills Verbal Response System instrument rated each student. The helping behaviors of nursing students were found to resemble those of trained mental health practitioners; their behavior was significantly different from those of untrained individuals, who were highly verbose, directive, and used minimal reflection of affect or content.