The aim of this paper is to explore the disciplinary and topic trends associated with empathy (E) and compassion (C) in the PubMed health-related literature and assess whether they suggest a sufficient basis for understanding empathic and compassionate relationships and communities of care in ways that serve practical ends.
Compassion is a word that conveys a sense of action taking place in response to suffering or distress. Over recent years we have seen considerable international debate surrounding compassion within healthcare practice. However, the topic of compassion has been little discussed in terms of the production of health services research. This paper seeks to address this gap by raising compassion within health services research as an area warranting consideration by those planning, managing and conducting such work. It considers compassion towards study participants when recruiting, collecting and analysing data, and also in relation to researchers involved in day to day activities associated with executing a project. Research leaders play a role in ensuring that compassion is not overlooked for those who provide or collect and interpret data. Furthermore, self-compassion could be fostered among researchers to buffer against the everyday activities of their job that have the potential to cause anxiety and distress.
The refugee crisis has resulted in massive waves of migration towards Europe. Besides sufficient and appropriate healthcare services, these vulnerable populations need kindness, respect, acceptance, empathy, and attention to basic needs. Healthcare professionals ought to have a respectful and compassionate approach to safeguard the dignity and interests of the people they care for.
In the acute medical care hospital setting, nursing the sick and dying is both physically and emotionally demanding, making acute medical care hospital nurses more vulnerable to Compassion Fatigue (CF) or Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS). If not addressed in its earliest stages, CF can adversely change the caregiver’s ability to provide compassionate care. It has been shown that Self-Compassion (SC) can be beneficial for the caregiver, with corresponding benefits for the individual needing care. However, the relationship of this attribute to CF in the acute medical care hospital nursing setting has not been intensively studied. This study explores the environmental and psychosocial factors affecting the prevalence and levels of CF in acute medical care hospital nursing staff and whether SC can be used as a coping strategy that enables nurses to mitigate the prevalence and levels of CF.
Nursing is emotional work and learning how to manage their emotions is a valuable part of nurse education. As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile nurses will care for people from diverse cultures and backgrounds. The development of cultural competence and a global mind-set is therefore a valuable asset and engagement in study abroad through overseas clinical placement can help to facilitate this. This study set out to explore the experience of student nurses involved in an exchange programme between Scotland and Western Australia. A particular focus was on the emotional aspects of the experience, responding to challenges and provision of care in a different healthcare setting.
Introduction Studies on female caregiver burden and its determinants in relation to physical environment and social support in low-income and middle-income countries are limited. This study evaluates the relationship between caregiving physical environment, social support and well-being of female caregivers and care recipients in Cape Town, South Africa. Methods One hundred (100) each of black African and coloured female caregivers from two different population settlements were randomly selected. Structured questionnaire was employed to gather information from caregivers. Description and correlation analyses were used to examine the association between health status of care recipients, environmental hygiene factors and female caregiver burden. Results About 49.5% of the female caregivers were between 50-59 years and worked full-time (≥40 hours per week). Better hygiene environment and working conditions are major determinants of caregiver burden and care recipient's physical health. Better hygiene conditions in the kitchen and toilet significantly increased care recipients' and caregivers’ physical health (P<0.05). Diarrhoea was found to be significantly associated with poorer environmental hygiene. Over 50% of the reported diarrhoea cases were among care recipients with poorer kitchen and toilet hygiene. Bad environmental hygiene increased the risk of diarrhoea among care recipients and caregivers. Physical health of the care recipients and social grants influenced the burden on the female caregiver. Conclusion Increase social grants and attention to environmental conditions of caregiving will improve the physical health and living standard of the care recipients and caregivers.
People with mental health problems often have difficulties linked to high self-criticism and shame, and may be fearful of and resistant to compassionate and prosocial motives. Compassion focused therapy (CFT) is specifically designed to help people address these difficulties, cultivate and build compassionate motives and emotions for self and others. There is increasing evidence for the effectiveness of CFT for both individuals and groups. This study, describing a protocol and evaluating a protocol-based CFT group treatment, adds to the evidence base in a Danish community transdiagnostic group of patients, suffering from shame, self- criticism, depression and anxiety.
The aim of this paper is to explore the concepts of personhood and compassion, as perceived by staff caring for people with dementia (PwD) in community-based dementia daycare. Autonomy in the Western culture is closely related to concepts of personhood and form the cornerstone of person centered care.
Research in the last 20 years has provided good evidence that developing compassion-focused motives for self and others has a range of benefits. However, people can behave in prosocial ways for different reasons, not all of which are genuinely care focused. This paper reports research comparing submissive compassion (being helpful to be liked) to “genuine” compassion in relation to domains of empathy and perspective taking. We developed a new short (5 item) self-report scale (the competitive perspective taking scale) to explore how people might use perspective taking for self-focused reasons. We investigated its association with validated empathy and compassion measures.
Studies of the value of compassion on physical and mental health and social relationships have proliferated in the last 25 years. Although, there are several conceptualisations and measures of compassion, this study develops three new measures of compassion competencies derived from an evolutionary, motivational approach. The scales assess 1. the compassion we experience for others, 2. the compassion we experience from others, and 3. self-compassion based on a standard definition of compassion as a ‘sensitivity to suffering in self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it’. We explored these in relationship to other compassion scales, self-criticism, depression, anxiety, stress and well-being.
To establish the attitudes towards and current status of self-training for medical students in UK medical schools.
Informal care is taking an increasingly important role in our health care system, and an improvement in our understanding of caregiving experiences and outcomes has become more relevant. The Lifelines informal care add-on study (Lifelines ICAS) was initiated within the Lifelines Cohort Study to cover the large heterogeneity in the caregiver population and to investigate the complex interplay among the characteristics of the caregiver, care recipient, and care situation and positive and negative caregiver outcomes. In this paper, we discuss the study design and data collection procedures of Lifelines ICAS, provide a detailed overview of its measures, and describe the caregiver study population.
Physicians from wealthy countries often provide direct medical services in low- and middle-income countries either on a short-term or long-term basis, herein differentiated by the physician’s source of income, rather than by time or mission specifics. Research data has accumulated in recent years on physician profiles and motivations for short- and long-term dimensions of physician commitment. This review provides some current insights on these physician pathways for transnational direct caregiving activities.
To complicate understandings of the emotions involved in the surgical encounter.
Young carers are children or young people who look after family members who are ill or have disabilities. They take over similar caregiving responsibilities to those of adult family carers and need special support. The purpose of this literature review was to summarize the body of knowledge about young carers’ lives with a special focus on their personal experiences, impact of caring, needs and coping behaviors.
Euthanasia poses a hot topic of argument in all modern societies. While in several countries the law allows euthanasia under certain conditions, in others, such as Greece, there is no established legal background. This is essentially derived from the conflict on the right to life, which is constitutionally guaranteed. The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitude of relatives or friends of critically ill patients hospitalized in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) towards euthanasia in a Greek hospital.
The implementation of community-based programs tailored to underserved patients who do not have access to quality health care can impact future health outcomes. Addressing these chronic disease issues is critical to intervene in communities and develop effective management solutions pertinent to one's health status. Many public-health objectives have been suggested for further evaluation through national Healthy People 2020 goals. Free clinics are intended to provide quality health care to individuals who do not have the ability to pay for medical expenses because of socioeconomic disadvantages. Vulnerable patient populations located in medically underserved regions are affected to a greater degree than the average city-dwelling communities, and potential interventions to tackle pertinent factors influencing positive health outcomes could provide improvements. Tailored educational models in free clinic settings can impact health behaviors and management in susceptible patients with chronic disease. Empathy and compassion are essential criteria to being able to effectively serve free clinic populations. It is important to implement interventions where healthcare providers must look at their patients holistically: what are their needs and barriers to care?
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in the place of others and understand their feelings and experiences. Empathy with cancer patients is essential in all disease stages. The purpose of our study was to determine the level and type of empathy in a sample of Iranian oncology nurses and to investigate the relationship between nurses’ empathy and their demographic characteristics.
Compassion fatigue is a form of occupational stress which occurs when individuals are exposed to suffering and trauma on an ongoing basis. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of compassion fatigue among student nurses following their first clinical placement in a UK health care setting during 2015.
Compassion in healthcare represents an ideal way of interacting with patients. It entails an active response to suffering, distress or discomfort that can be associated with people seeking health related support or treatment. However, reports from within healthcare highlight that compassionate care (CC) is not always achieved. It may be especially problematic when trying to work with a patient who seems unwilling or unable to engage with advice provided by a healthcare professional (HCP).
