Three hundred nine obstetrical nurses participated in an experimental study to examine the influence of situational variables on nurses' emotional care. Two independent variables, woman's age and parity status, were tested. Three levels of woman's age and parity status were combined in 9 vignettes to represent a typical clinical situation of miscarriage. The vignettes were randomly presented to the subjects for consideration.

A 14-item questionnaire was developed to measure components of emotional care for miscarriage patients. A subsequent factor analysis revealed three factors which became the dependent variables of (a) emotional seriousness, (b) priority of care, and (c) need for emotional support.

Two principal hypotheses were tested for each of the three dependent variables. They were (a) that as the woman's age increases, she will receive more emotional care, and (b) that as the parity increases, the woman will receive less emotional care. The six hypotheses were tested using a 3 x 3 ANOVA procedure, followed by Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference multiple group comparison test. The findings showed that parity status had the hypothesized effect on emotional seriousness and priority of care, but not on emotional support. Woman's age was not found to be a significant factor in determining emotional care.

A subsequent regression analysis utilizing the demographic data on the nurses as predictors showed that an increase in the nurse's age predicted higher scores on emotional seriousness. Higher educational status and an increase in the nurse's age predicted higher scores on emotional support.

The findings of the study revealed that nurses rates the emotional care of miscarriage patients as important. While parity status was a statistically significant factor in explaining nurses' responses, it was not a major predictor. The addition of demographic information on the nurses did little to add to the explanatory power of the model. Further study needs to be directed toward identifying other variables which affect the relationships between nurses and miscarriage patients.