Compassion in health professionals: Development and validation of the Capacity for Compassion Scale

Abstract

Background: Health professionals witness pain and suffering when they care for sick people and their families. Compassion is a necessary quality in their work as it combines the will to help, alleviate suffering and promote the well-being of both the people they are attending and the professionals themselves. The aim of the study was to design and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Capacity for Compassion Scale (CCS). Design: A quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional study was carried out to evaluate the psychometric properties of the scale (reliability, temporal stability, content validity, criterion validity and construct validity). Methods: The study was carried out in two phases: pilot study and final validation. The data were collected between April and May 2022. The sample was selected by convenience sampling and was made up of a total of 264 participants, 59 in the pilot phase and 205 in the final validation. Results: The Capacity for Compassion Scale has been shown to have good psychometric properties in relation to reliability, temporal stability, and content, criterion, and construct validity. Factor analysis showed that there were four subdimensions of the scale: motivation/commitment, presence, shared humanity and self-compassion. The results also indicate that compassionate ability is significantly correlated with age and work experience. Conclusions: The Capacity for Compassion Scale shows adequate psychometric properties. This instrument measures the compassion capacity of health professionals, which is a valuable discovery for new lines of research in this field. Impact: Through this scale, low levels of capacity for compassion can be detected that negatively influence the quality of care provided by health professionals. The Capacity for Compassion Scale can therefore contribute to the identification of needs and promote training around compassion for health professionals. Patient or Public Contribution: No patient or public contribution. What Problem did the Study Address?: Compassion in health professionals has positive effects on improving the quality of care, the satisfaction of professionals and the work environment. There are compassion cultivation programmes whose validity has been proven for the development of the dimensions of compassion. There is no specific instrument that measures capacity for compassion in healthcare professionals. What were the Main Findings?: A scale is designed to measure capacity for compassion in health professionals. This is the only such scale available up until now. The scale measures four dimensions of compassion: motivation/commitment, presence, shared humanity and self-compassion. Where and on Whom will the Research Have an Impact?: The development of specific programmes that can increase the compassion of health professionals with all the benefits that this can bring to health care is encouraged. It will be possible to analyse the effects of training programmes on the cultivation of compassion. © 2023 The Authors. Journal of Advanced Nursing published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.