Understanding the concept of compassion from the perspectives of nurses

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Abstract

Background:

The high level of satisfaction of users of a health service is largely due to the fact that they receive excellent care from healthcare professionals. Compassionate care is an essential component of excellent care. But what do nurses understand compassion to be?

Research objectives:

To analyse the concept of compassion from the perspective of nurses in the Andalusian Public Health System, Spain.

Research design:

This is a qualitative study following the grounded theory model. Four focus groups and 25 in-depth interviews were conducted.

Participants and research context:

A total of 68 nursing professionals working in the Andalusian Public Health System (Spain) participated. Theoretical sampling was used, with participants being recruited using the snowball technique.

Ethical considerations:

This research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Centro-Almería Health District (CEICA 27/9/17).

Findings:

From the analysis of the data, four themes emerged that helped to understand the concept of compassion according to nurses: ‘Negative perception of the term compassion’, ‘Compassion and empathy as synonyms’, ‘Beyond empathy’, and ‘Effects of having a compassionate attitude’.

Discussion:

Nurses perceive the concept of compassion differently to each other and even contradictorily. This concept is imbued with cultural elements, which adds confusion to understanding it, and is even perceived as something negative similar to pity.

Conclusion:

Nurses confuse the concepts of empathy and compassion as if they were synonymous. Before considering training in compassion for healthcare professionals, it is essential to clarify the concept of compassion through educational interventions.

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Most cited references 43

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The origins and nature of compassion focused therapy.

Paul Gilbert (2014)

Compassion focused therapy (CFT) is rooted in an evolutionary, functional analysis of basic social motivational systems (e.g., to live in groups, form hierarchies and ranks, seek out sexual, partners help and share with alliances, and care for kin) and different functional emotional systems (e.g., to respond to threats, seek out resources, and for states of contentment/safeness). In addition, about 2 million years ago, (pre-)humans began to evolve a range of cognitive competencies for reasoning, reflection, anticipating, imagining, mentalizing, and creating a socially contextualized sense of self. These new competencies can cause major difficulties in the organization of (older) motivation and emotional systems. CFT suggests that our evolved brain is therefore potentially problematic because of its basic 'design,' being easily triggered into destructive behaviours and mental health problems (called 'tricky brain'). However, mammals and especially humans have also evolved motives and emotions for affiliative, caring and altruistic behaviour that can organize our brain in such a way as to significantly offset our destructive potentials. CFT therefore highlights the importance of developing people's capacity to (mindfully) access, tolerate, and direct affiliative motives and emotions, for themselves and others, and cultivate inner compassion as a way for organizing our human 'tricky brain' in prosocial and mentally healthy ways. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.