The Moderating Role of Existential Thinking in the Association between Health Anxiety and Nurse Empathy with Covid-19 Patients

Background: Nurses' direct exposure to COVID-19 patients and resulting health anxiety can threaten their performance of human and moral duties. Materials and Methods: This work was a descriptive correlational study. The statistical population was all nurses working in the intensive care unit of COVID-19 patients in Ardabil hospitals in the 2021 year, from which 150 people were selected by convenient sampling. Data were collected using the Health Anxiety Inventory, Scale for Existential Thinking, and the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy. Results: The Pearson correlation coefficient showed that the association between empathy and health anxiety was negative and significant (r = -0.47, P <0.001), and that between empathy and existential thinking was positive and significant (r = 0.31, P <0.001). Also, the correlation coefficients between health anxiety and existential thinking showed a negative and significant association between the two variables (r = -0.28, P <0.001). In addition, the moderated hierarchical regression analysis showed that the interactive effect of health anxiety and existential thinking on nurses' empathy with patients with COVID-19 was 29%. Conclusion: According to the finding of this study, strengthening the spiritual attitude and existential thinking among the nurses of the COVID-19 ward was necessary to reduce health anxiety and its negative effects on the empathetic comunication with patients.