Layout 1 Caring skills in nursing students Eur J Transl Myol 35 (1) 12968, 2025 doi: 10.4081/ejtm.2025.12968 Caring skills (CS) in patients are a set of skills that health care professionals should present, such as providing compassionate patient-centered care.1 Human caring is an art that can be learned through nursing education and other educational programs.2 The development of CS is essential for nursing students, in essential in undergraduate education, as it allows them to learn and gain experience in quality and compassionate care of future patients. Likewise, CSs are essential in nursing students, as they can help them build rapport with their patients, increase their own satisfaction in caring for their patients, and use these conversations to constantly reevaluate their plans for treat- ing their future patients.3 In fact, nurses’ CSs encompass knowledge, attitudes and skills.4 These skills are largely influenced by the environ- ment.5 For example, they are influenced by several factors, including education and training, experience, professional development, clinical judgment, decision-making skills, and communication.6 In essence, during academic and professional training, the interaction between the nursing student and the patient is greatly affected by the student’s knowledge and skills. This is because, more knowledge will help the student to estab- lish the right caring behavior and trust towards patients.7 Therefore, it is important to study CS in nursing students, given that the role of future nurses is to preserve patient safety and prevent harm during the provision of care in both short and long-term care settings.8 Therefore, nursing students must learn to effectively artic- ulate to patients and their families. This is because, within professional and clinical competencies, clinical compe- tencies are highlighted as having to do with adherence to clinical guidelines and effective nursing interventions.9 It even encompasses technical and communication skills, knowledge, clinical reasoning, emotions and values in the clinical setting.10 Consequently, assessing CS in nursing students could pro- vide valuable information, especially in a sample of female nursing students. Where they present a wide age range, pre- vious caregiving experiences, including whether or not they live alone, could affect how they perceive CSs. Abstract Caring skills are essential in the training of nursing professionals, because they allow them to learn and gain experience in the quality and compassionate care of future patients. The objective is to compare the Caring Skills (CS) in nursing students according to age range, experience and family environment. A descriptive comparative study was carried out. The sample consisted of 176 nursing students from a Peruvian university. The age range was 18 to 27 years. A patient care skills scale was applied. This scale has three indicators (knowledge, courage and patience) and 37 questions. There were no differences in the three indicators (knowledge, courage and patience) when compared by age range (P>0.05). There were significant differences when compared by age range between students living with family and living alone (P<0.05). There was no difference between students who had experience vs. those who had no experience in patient care (P>0.05). It was determined that age and living with family members are determinant in the CS of nursing students of a Peruvian university. There were no differences between experienced and inexperienced students. Key Words: caring skills, students, nursing. Eur J Transl Myol 35 (1) 12968, 2025 doi: 10.4081/ejtm.2025.12968 Caring skills in nursing students at a university Luz M. Caballero-Apaza,1 Rubén Vidal-Espinoza,2 Silvia D. Curaca Arroyo,1 Denices S. Abarca-Fernández,1 Rossana Gomez-Campos,3,4 Marco Cossio-Bolaños3,4 1Escuela Profesional de Enfermería, Universidad Nacional del Altiplano de Puno, Puno, Perú; 2Universidad Católica Silva Henriquez, Santiago, Chile; 3Universidad Católica del Maule, Talca, Chile; 4Faculty of Education, Psychology and Sports Sciences, University of Huelva, Huelva, Spain. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (CC BY-NC 4.0) which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. - 93 - Caring skills in nursing students Eur J Transl Myol 35 (1) 12968, 2025 doi: 10.4081/ejtm.2025.12968 Therefore, the aim of this study was to compare CS in nurs- ing students according to age ranges, experience, and family environment. Materials and Methods Type of study and sample A descriptive (comparative) study was designed in 176 fe- male nursing students of a Peruvian university. The sam- ple was non-probabilistic (accidental). The age range was 18 to 27 years. All the volunteers were enrolled in a university in their third and fourth year. Data were collected in August 2023. All students who were enrolled in the nursing program and those who authorized participation in the study were included in the study. Students who were not within the age limit and those who did not show up on the day of the application of the scale were excluded. The study was con- ducted in accordance with the Helsinki declaration and the local ethics committee. Techniques and procedures Data collection was carried out at the university facilities from Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon. The survey technique was used to measure the CS. The instru- ment used was the Nkongho scale.11 This scale has three indicators (knowledge, value and patience), and a total of 37 questions. The alternatives were Likert-type: for ex- ample, 1 to 7 alternatives were used, where 7 indicates a higher degree of attention when the statement is positive. In the case of negative items, the score is inverted. The scale was applied in a traditional pencil-and-paper manner. The entire procedure was carried out by two of the researchers. The time it took to apply the scale was 15 to 20 minutes. Statistics The normal distribution of the data was verified by means of Kolmogorov-Smirnov. All data were normal. Descrip- tive statistics (mean, standard deviation, range and per- centage) were calculated. Differences between age groups were performed by one-way ANOVA and Tukey’s test of specificity. Differences between the two groups (with and without experience) and (living with relatives and living alone) were compared with t-test for independent samples. In all cases, p<0.05 was adopted. Calculations were per- formed in Excel spreadsheets and SPSS 18.0. Results The majority of the participants in this study are between 18 and 23 years of age, with a slight predominance in the 18 to 20 years age group. Regarding their living environ- ment, more than half live with their family, while the rest live alone. Regarding experience in caring for others, the sample is fairly balanced. Although a small majority have no experience in this aspect. Finally, regarding the prev- alence of CS, almost all participants are in the middle level, with very few at the extremes of high or low prevalence. This distribution suggests that the sample is mostly young, with a life shared with relatives, and limited experience in caring for others, while the prevalence of CS tends to be moderate in most cases (Table 1). Comparisons in the CS indicators by age range, living environment and experience in patient care are shown in Table 2. There were no differences in the three indicators (knowledge, courage and patience) when compared by age range (P>0.05). In addition, there were no differ- ences between students who, according to living envi- ronment, between those living with family and alone, and according to experience (between those with experi- ence and those without). On the contrary, we verified sig- nificant differences in the CS in the total values, whereas the age range increases, the mean values of CS increase (P<0.05). Comparisons of the CS according to living environment and experience are observed in Figure 1. Students living with family presented higher mean values at 18-20 years (CS: 180.23±17.05points) and 21-23 years (186±18.10 points) compared to those living alone (18-20 years with 174±18.80 points and 21-23 years with 178.9±15.49 points). There were no differences in the last age range at 24-27 years between both groups (with family: 186.18±9.62 points and live alone: 186.25±14.48 points). In the comparison between young women with [18-20 years: 176.32±19.31 points, 21-23 years: 181.23±23.6 points and 24-27 years: 185.67±10.58 points] and without - 94 - Table 1. Characteristics of the sample studied. Variables n % Ages (years) 18 a 20 86 48.8 21 a 23 73 41.5 24 a 27 17 9.7 Total 176 100 Living environment Lives with family 97 55.1 Lives alone 79 44.9 Total 176 100 Caregiving experience Experienced 84 47.7 No experience 92 52.3 Total 176 100 CS Prevalence High 1 0.56 Medium 145 82.4 Low 30 17.1 Total 176 100 CS, caring skills. Caring skills in nursing students Eur J Transl Myol 35 (1) 12968, 2025 doi: 10.4081/ejtm.2025.12968 experiences [18-20 years: 176.09±16.8 points, 21-23 years: 181.66±19.62 points and 24-27 years: 184.75± 12.39 points]. There were no differences between both groups and in the three age categories (P>0.05). Discussion The aim of this study was to compare CS in nursing stu- dents according to age range, experience and family en- vironment. The results have shown that young nursing students living with family members presented better aver- age CS values than their peers living alone. In addition, we verified that there was no difference between students who had experience in caregiving versus those who had no ex- perience. This demonstrates that age is a determinant vari- able in the CS of the students investigated, especially in the group living with relatives and in general. As age increases, the higher the age, the better the CSs. These results indicate that CS in nursing students are af- fected by age, although the literature reports that CS are in- fluenced by a combination of several factors, such as age, experience, income and education.12,13 - 95 - Table 2. Comparison of CS according to age ranges, family environment and experience. Variables n I. knowledge I. courage I. patience Total, CS X DE X DE X DE X DE Ages 18-20 87 74.7 11.9 43.3 8.4 57.5 8.2 175.4 18 21-23 73 75.9 13.1 45.9 10.8 60.3 10 182.1 21.7a 24-27 16 76.6 7 47.6 8.7 60.8 6.4 187 10.8a,b Living environment Lives with family 97 75.6 11.3 44.8 9.7 59.8 6.8 180.2 17.1 Lives alone 79 75.4 12.7 44.5 9.7 57.9 10.9 177.8 21.7 Caregiving experience Experienced 83 76.2 12 44 9.9 59.3 10.5 179.6 20.3 No experience 93 74.8 11.9 45.3 9.5 58.4 7.1 178.4 18.3 X, mean; SD, standard deviation; I, indicator; CS, caring skills, a, significant difference in relation to 18-20 years; b, significant difference in relation to 21-23 years. Figure 1. Comparison of CS by age range, according to living environment and CS experience in nursing students. *Significant difference in relation to living alone. Caring skills in nursing students Eur J Transl Myol 35 (1) 12968, 2025 doi: 10.4081/ejtm.2025.12968 Future studies should pay attention to these indicators, since there are nurse-patient interactions, in which a vari- ety of attitudes and behaviors are presented in the human- istic, relational and clinical areas.14,15 Therefore, future nurses must learn to assess, plan and provide medical care aimed at meeting basic human needs regardless of age and experience. This planning for patient and other care helps professionals in training to communicate quality infor- mation, facilitating continuity of care with their patients.16 Especially when it comes to providing medical care aimed at meeting the basic human needs of patients.15 In general, scientific evidence shows that nurses between 21 and 35 years of age have little experience and are not competent enough to meet patients’ needs and provide high quality care.17 Therefore, it is necessary that future nurses rely on technical, interpersonal and organizational skills.18 In essence, it is critical that university educators and clin- ical nurses should emphasize the importance of caring skill development in internship planning and encourage nursing students to become more involved with patients.19 This will make it possible to improve health care and can provide quality care and demonstrate high levels of patient safety.20 In sum, nurses have a central role in providing emotional and psychological support to patients and their families in all settings, such as supporting the patient during diagnosis and ensuring optimal care.21 This is achievable through health literacy, as it is here that effective communication skills can be developed and facilitated between profes- sional care providers and the public or clients.22 In essence, it highlights that age is essential in patient care, as older patients experience positive experiences relative to younger patients. Although they often reflect higher levels of depression, memory loss, and anxiety.23 Indeed, future studies should further investigate these dynamics to better understand caregiving in patients, not only in nursing students but in health care professionals. This study had some weaknesses and strengths that should be described. It was not possible to control for variables such as parental schooling and we were limited to studying only women. Other studies in the future should control for these variables, as it is possible that men may show differences in CS with patients. Also the type and size of the sample could show some bias in the results. Therefore, it is necessary to select a probabilistic sample, which could help to generalize the results ob- tained. This is one of the first studies carried out in Peru in nursing students, so it could be considered as a base- line for future comparisons. Conclusions In conclusion, it was determined that age and living with family members are determinants in the CS of nursing stu- dents at a Peruvian university. There were no differences between students with and without experience. These re- sults suggest that as the students increase in age and live with a family member, they present better skills to attend their future patients. List of abbreviations CS, Caring skills X, mean SD, standard deviation I, Indicator Conflict of interest The authors declare no potential conflict of interest, and all authors confirm accuracy. Ethics approval The Ethics Committee of Universidad Nacional del Al- tiplano approved this study (15-2023/CIEI-UNA-Puno). The study is conformed with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964, as revised in 2013, concerning human and animal rights. Informed consent All patients participating in this study signed a written in- formed consent form for participating in this study. Patient consent for publication Written informed consent was obtained from a legally au- thorized representative(s) for anonymized patient infor- mation to be published in this article. Availability of data and materials All data generated or analyzed during this study are in- cluded in this published article. Corresponding author Marco Cossio Bolaños, Universidad Católica del Maule, Av. San Miguel 3605, Talca, Chile. ORCID ID: 0000-0001-7230-9996 E-mail: mcossio1972@hotmail.com Co authors Luz M. Caballero-Apaza ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2105-9007 E-mail: lmcaballero@unap.edu.pe Rubén Vidal-Espinoza ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8593-5248 E-mail: rvidale@gmail.com Silvia D Curaca-Arroyo ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8470-1378 E-mail: sdcuraca@unap.edu.pe Denices S Abarca Fernandez ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1638-8252 E-mail: dsabarca@unap.edu.pe - 96 - https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2105-9007 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8593-5248 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8470-1378 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1638-8252 Caring skills in nursing students Eur J Transl Myol 35 (1) 12968, 2025 doi: 10.4081/ejtm.2025.12968 Rossana Gomez Campos ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6509-5707 E-mail: rossaunicamp@gmail.com References 1. Institute of Medicine (IM) Committee on Quality of Health Care in America. Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2001. 2. Amir S, Sabiha Kh, Sheraz Kh, et al. 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Disclaimer All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their af- filiated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher. Submitted: 25 August 2024. Accepted: 9 October 2024. Early access: 11 March 2025. - 97 - https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6509-5707