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

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.