Can compassionate healthcare be measured? The Schwartz Center Compassionate Care Scale™.
OBJECTIVE
Assess psychometric characteristics of an instrument to measure patient ratings of treating physicians' compassionate care in a recent hospitalization.


METHODS
We used Cronbach's alpha to examine scale reliability, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to examine scale structure of two sets of items on compassionate care. We used Mokken analysis to determine if items in each set belonged to a unidimensional scale.


RESULTS
Results indicated that both sets of items had strong reliability when used to rate individual physicians (Cronbach's α=.97 and .95). A one factor model was a good fit to both sets of items. Mokken analysis supported unidimensional scales. Both sets of items correlated with an overall measure of patient satisfaction with physicians and even more strongly with an item measuring emotional support.


CONCLUSIONS
A patient-rated scale reliably measured hospital physicians' compassion and correlated significantly with an item measuring overall patient satisfaction and a specific measure of satisfaction with emotional support. Measurement of compassionate healthcare should be included in research, educational assessment, and quality improvement programs.


CONCLUSIONS
Clinicians should participate in efforts to enhance their ability to demonstrate compassionate care including eliciting and sharing information and acting collaboratively to ameliorate patients' socioemotional concerns and needs.
The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, Boston, USA; Harvard Medical School and Mount Auburn Hospital, Department of Medicine, Cambridge, USA. Electronic address: blown@mah.harvard.edu.
Beth A
BA
Lown
Department of Clinical Psychology, School of Health and Social Care, Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK.
Steven J
SJ
Muncer
Department of Clinical Psychology, School of Health and Social Care, Teesside University, Middlesbrough, UK.
Raymond
R
Chadwick
D000328:Adult; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004645:Empathy; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D063868:Patient Outcome Assessment; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D018802:Patient-Centered Care; D010465:Perception; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D058996:Quality Improvement; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Compassion; Compassionate healthcare; Empathy; Measurement; Patient satisfaction; Patient-centered; Physician–patient relations; Quality improvement