Delivering compassionate care: the enablers and barriers.
The importance of providing compassionate care to patients is well established. While compassionate care can be understood as an individual response to others' vulnerability, it is acknowledged that healthcare environments can impact significantly on this aspect of practice. This study sought to explore how health professionals and pre-qualifying healthcare students (HCS) understand compassionate care and factors that hinder or enable them to practice compassionately. The perceptions of health professionals (n=146) and HCS (n=166) registered at a university in Northwest England were explored using mixed methods. This article reports on the data gained from the qualitative interviews and responses to open-text questions from the mainly quantitative questionnaire. The findings are discussed under the following themes: individual and relationship factors that impact on compassionate care practice; organisational factors that impact on the clinical environment and team; and leadership factors that hinder or enable a compassionate care culture. This article argues that there are a number of enabling factors that enhance a culture conducive to providing compassionate care. These include leaders who act as positive role models, good relationships between team members and a focus on staff wellbeing.
Head of Adult Nursing, Faculty of Health and Social Care, Edge Hill University.
Angela
A
Christiansen
Professor, Faculty of Health and Social Care, Edge Hill University.
Mary R
MR
O'Brien
Research Assistant, Evidence-based Practice Research Centre, Faculty of Health and Social Care, Edge Hill University.
Jennifer A
JA
Kirton
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Health and Social Care, Edge Hill University.
Kate
K
Zubairu
Reader in Children, Young people and Families, Evidence-based Practice Research Centre, Faculty of Health and Social Care, Edge Hill University.
Lucy
L
Bray
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D004517:Education, Professional / Q000379:methods*; D004645:Empathy; D004739:England; D005260:Female; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000193:education* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007857:Leadership; D008297:Male; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D036301:Qualitative Research; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
Compassion; Compassionate care; Health professionals; Healthcare students