Measuring compassion in nurses and other healthcare professionals: An integrative review

• This review identified how compassion has been measured in nurses and other health professionals.
• The review highlighted the dearth of appropriate user-friendly compassion measuring tools.
• No tools were found which measured culturally competent compassion.
• Further research is needed to develop a tool which can be used in multicultural clinical contexts.

BackgroundCompassion is an essential part of nursing practice. However recent high profile public inquiries have uncovered failings in the NHS and revealed a need for nursing education to assure that both undergraduate and postgraduate healthcare professionals receive training in compassion.ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to review how compassion is being measured in nurses and other healthcare professionals.Review methodsAn integrative review methodology was used. The literature was searched systematically, using electronic databases, internet searches, recommendations by experts in the field, and manual searches.ResultsSix papers on measuring compassion in healthcare were included in the final analysis. Several overarching themes were identified as the main elements of compassion being measured. These included: being empathetic, recognising and ending suffering, being caring, communicating with patients, connecting to and relating with patients, being competent, attending to patients needs/going the extra mile, and involving the patient.ConclusionsFurther research is needed to develop and test tools that nurse and healthcare educators can use to assess the levels of compassion in their undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as making this available to qualified nurses in practice.