Articles

An investigation into compassion fatigue and self-compassion in acute medical care hospital nurses: a mixed methods study

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 Seco...

Authors: Katherine Valentine Upton

Empathy and compassion in the health-related literature: disciplinary and topic trends and gaps

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 ...

Authors: Lynne D’Amico

Culture, courage and compassion: exploring the experience of student nurses on placement abroad

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 bac...

Authors: Elizabeth Adamson

Correction to: Transdiagnostic group therapy for people with self-critic and low self esteem, based on compassion focused therapy principles

Unfortunately, after publication of this article [1], it was noticed that Figs. 2, 3 and 4 were replications of Fig. 1. The correct versions of Figs.2, 3 and 4 can be seen here.

Authors: Bodil Andersen and Peter Hørslev Rasmussen

Caregiver attributes and socio-demographic determinants of caregiving burden in selected low-income communities in cape town, South Africa

Informal caregivers play an important role in the well-being of dependent members in a household. Yet, literature on female caregiver burden in low-income and middle-income countries is scanty. This study exam...

Authors: Yakubu A. Yakubu and De Wet Schutte

Compassionate care provision: an immense need during the refugee crisis: lessons learned from a European capacity-building project

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, a...

Authors: Enkeleint-Aggelos Mechili, Agapi Angelaki, Elena Petelos, Dimitra Sifaki-Pistolla, Vasiliki-Eirini Chatzea, Christopher Dowrick, Kathryn Hoffman, Elena Jirovsky, Danica Rotar Pavlic, Michel Dückers, Imre Rurik, Maria van den Muijsenbergh, Tessa van Loenen, Dean Ajdukovic, Helena Bakic and Christos Lionis

What place does compassion hold in the conduct and production of health services research?

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 ...

Authors: Stephanie Tierney

Transdiagnostic group therapy for people with self- critic and low self esteem, based on compassion focused therapy principles

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) ...

Authors: Bodil Andersen and Peter Hørslev Rasmussen

Redeeming Mr. Sawbone: compassion and care in the cultures of nineteenth-century surgery

To complicate understandings of the emotions involved in the surgical encounter.

Authors: Michael Brown

Young carers: growing up with chronic illness in the family - a systematic review 2007-2017

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 sup...

Authors: Nino Chikhradze, Christiane Knecht and Sabine Metzing

Free clinic educational interventions for patients with chronic disease

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 criti...

Authors: Ashruta Patel and Valerie E. Cadet

Conception of family and friends on euthanasia in intensive care unit in Greece

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 backgro...

Authors: Tania Triantafyllou, Nikolaos Giakis, Elisavet Polychronopoulou, Michael Demosthenous, Stylianos Karatzas, Spyridon Stergiopoulos, Georgios Zografos and Dimitrios Theodorou

“Fit” for service: contrasting physician profiles and motivations for short-term medical missions and Médecins Sans Frontières

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,...

Authors: Paul H. Caldron

The enduring self: personhood, autonomy and compassion in the context of community-based dementia daycare centers

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 i...

Authors: Rakel Berenbaum, Chariklia Tziraki and Keren Mazuz

Empathy from the perspective of oncology nurses

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 det...

Authors: Maryam Sedaghati Kesbakhi, Camelia Rohani, Jamileh Mohtashami and Malihe Nasiri

The Lifelines Cohort Study: a data source available for studying informal caregivers’ experiences and the outcomes of informal caregiving

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...

Authors: M. Oldenkamp, M. Hagedoorn, R. P. Stolk, R. P. M. Wittek and N. Smidt

Measuring competitive self-focus perspective taking, submissive compassion and compassion goals

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 reaso...

Authors: Paul Gilbert, Francisca Catarino, Joana Sousa, Laura Ceresatto, Rosalind Moore and Jaskaran Basran

The development of compassionate engagement and action scales for self and others

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...

Authors: Paul Gilbert, Francisca Catarino, Cristiana Duarte, Marcela Matos, Russell Kolts, James Stubbs, Laura Ceresatto, Joana Duarte, José Pinto-Gouveia and Jaskaran Basran

Current status and attitudes to self-care training in UK medical schools

To establish the attitudes towards and current status of self-training for medical students in UK medical schools.

Authors: Eunice J. Minford and Christopher L. Manning

The meaning of compassion fatigue to student nurses: an interpretive phenomenological study

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...

Authors: Kirsten Jack

Appraising the situation: a framework for understanding compassionate care

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 suppo...

Authors: Stephanie Tierney, Kate Seers, Joanne Reeve and Liz Tutton

Midwifery empathy scale: development and validation for a greek sample

In recent years, a growing number of studies report on the importance of empathy to women’s care. The Midwifery Empathy Scale (M.E.S) was developed in order to study and record the levels of empathy of profess...

Authors: Victoria G. Vivilaki, Polyxeni Fifli, Anastasia Charitou, Paraskevi Giaxi, Chrysoula Ekizoglou, Nicholas D. Tsopelas, Maria Bouroutzoglou and Evridiki Patelarou

Erratum to: Stress in NHS staff triggers defensive inward-focussing and an associated loss of connection with colleagues: this is reversed by Schwartz Rounds

Authors: Melanie S. George

Encouraging compassion through teaching and learning: a case study in Cyprus

It has been suggested that the biomedical approach towards healthcare professional training may neglect the humanistic nature and personal values of care. As such, discussions with regard to the importance of ...

Authors: Sue Shea, George Samoutis, Robin Wynyard, Andreas Samoutis, Christos Lionis, Andreas Anastasiou, Alice Araujo, Alexia Papageorgiou and Renos Papadopoulos

Stress in NHS staff triggers defensive inward-focussing and an associated loss of connection with colleagues: this is reversed by Schwartz Rounds

The aim of this case study was to examine the impact of Schwartz Rounds on staff wellbeing and patient care.

Authors: Melanie S. George

What makes a compassionate relationship between caregiver and patient? Findings from the ‘anniversary’ Schwartz Rounds

During the autumn of 2015, 21 Schwartz Rounds were held in England and Wales with the same topic: what makes a compassionate relationship between caregiver and patient? Participants explored themes such as the...

Authors: Joanna Goodrich

Empathy promoting interventions for health professionals: a systematic review of RCTs

Authors assessed systematically the effectiveness of interventions aiming at health professionals’ increase of empathic responses.

Authors: Vassilios N. Kiosses, Vassilios T. Karathanos and Athina Tatsioni

Reflections about experiences of compassionate care from award winning undergraduate nurses – What, so what … now what?

From 2007 until 2012 Edinburgh Napier University’s School of Nursing Midwifery and Social Care in conjunction with NHS Lothian, collaborated on a programme of action research entitled, the Leadership in Compas...

Authors: Stephen Smith, Asha James, Allison Brogan, Elizabeth Adamson and Mandy Gentleman

Joined forces in person-centered care in the intensive care unit: a case report from the Netherlands

First, to describe the state of the art of joined forces in person-centered care of professionals and patients with their relatives, in the context of intensive care units (ICUs) in the Netherlands. Second, to...

Authors: Margo M. C. van Mol, Marianne Brackel, Erwin J. O. Kompanje, Lorette Gijsbers, Marjan D. Nijkamp, Armand R. J. Girbes and Jan Bakker

Levels of job dissatisfaction and work-related stressors experienced by medical doctors in Greek hospitals

Although a considerable number of studies have been conducted with regard to work well-being of medical personnel, few of these have focused on smaller countries with a cultural setting such as Greece. In spec...

Authors: Alexander-Stamatios Antoniou, Cary L. Cooper and Marilyn J. Davidson

Introducing compassion into the education of health care professionals; can Schwartz Rounds help?

Whilst health care professionals embark on their careers with high ideals these can be eroded by the pressures and stress of the system. This paper explores the problems, which may lead both students and profe...

Authors: R. Barker, J. Cornwell and F. Gishen

Developing tools to promote culturally competent compassion, courage, and intercultural communication in healthcare

Compassion is an important concept in healthcare, and in addition, care should be delivered in a culturally competent manner, taking into account the values, culture, and health beliefs of the individual. Howe...

Authors: Irena Papadopoulos, Sue Shea, Georgina Taylor, Alfonso Pezzella and Laura Foley

Does working alliance have an influence on pain and physical functioning in patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain; a systematic review

Working alliance can possibly influence patients’ experiences of pain and physical functioning. The aim of this systematic review is to merge evidence from literature regarding the influence of patients’ perce...

Authors: Sandra E. Lakke and Sebastiaan Meerman

The Physicians’ Giving Back Survey: Keeping up with American generosity

America scored at the top of the World Giving Index survey in 2014. This paper reports on a survey among US physicians about preferences for and prevalence of pro-bono activities devoted to health-related dire...

Authors: Paul H. Caldron, Ann Impens, Milena Pavlova and Wim Groot

The role of compassion and ‘Tough Love’ in caring for and supporting the homeless: experiences from ‘Catching Lives’ Canterbury, UK

Homelessness is a wide-spread problem which can lead to high vulnerability and social exclusion. There are many reasons why a person may become homeless, with relationship breakdown being reported as a common ...

Authors: Jon Limebury and Sue Shea

“More than kindness”

Recent high profile cases in the UK have all too often demonstrated care which lacked compassion or dignity, although this is far from being a new phenomenon

Authors: David Haslam

Compassion in facilitating the development of person-centred health care practice

Person-centred practice, which includes compassion, needs to be well facilitated in order to flourish in healthcare settings. Facilitation is known to be complex and requires expert knowing and skills. The imp...

Authors: Famke van Lieshout, Angie Titchen, Brendan McCormack and Tanya McCance

Student empathy levels across 12 medical and health professions: an interventional study

Empathy is a difficult characteristic to define, teach and assess; the ‘nebulous’ properties of empathic behaviour often means that educators fail to incorporate the explicit teaching and assessment of empathy...

Authors: Brett Williams, Ted Brown, Lisa McKenna, Claire Palermo, Prue Morgan, Debra Nestel, Richard Brightwell, Susan Gilbert-Hunt, Karen Stagnitti, Alexander Olaussen and Caroline Wright

A snapshot review of culturally competent compassion as addressed in selected mental health textbooks for undergraduate nursing students

The recent scandals involving poor healthcare put nurses under the spotlight in an attempt to understand how compassionate they are towards their patients.

Authors: Irena Papadopoulos and Alfonso Pezzella

General practitioners’ patient-centredness and responses to patients’ emotional cues and concerns: relationships with perceived empathy in areas of high and low socioeconomic deprivation

Physician empathy is important to patients across the socio-economic spectrum. However, whether socioeconomic status (SES) influences how patients’ judge physician empathy is not known. We investigated how pat...

Authors: Jenna-Marie Lundy, Annemieke Bikker, Maria Higgins, Graham C Watt, Paul Little, Gerry M Humphries and Stewart W Mercer

Obituary: Dimitrios Trichopoulos (1938–2014)

Authors: Christos Lionis

Loving-kindness meditation: a tool to improve healthcare provider compassion, resilience, and patient care

Stress is a critical problem facing many healthcare institutions. The consequences of stress include increased provider burnout and decreased quality of care for patients. Ironically, a key factor that may hel...

Authors: Emma M Seppala, Cendri A Hutcherson, Dong TH Nguyen, James R Doty and James J Gross

Cultural immersion and compassionate care in a study abroad course: the Greek Connection

Madeleine Leininger, a nurse anthropologist and nurse theorist, recognized caring as essential in providing culturally congruent care, and that congruent culture care had not been adequately addressed in nursi...

Authors: Muriel Larson

A qualitative study of the understanding and use of ‘compassion focused coping strategies’ in people who suffer from serious weight difficulties

The physical and psychological health problems associated with obesity are now well documented, as is the urgency for addressing them. In addition, associations between quality of life, depression, self-esteem...

Authors: Jean Gilbert, R James Stubbs, Corinne Gale, Paul Gilbert, Laura Dunk and Louise Thomson

Mind as a dimension & compassion as a relationship issue

In the following paper it is argued that within a mistaken materialistic western scientific paradigm, mind is incorrectly reduced to brain. Such bad science means that compassion, along with many other phenome...

Authors: Martin Seager

Patient-centered care retreats as a method for enhancing and sustaining compassion in action in healthcare settings

Compassion, and its close counterparts empathy and kindness, are increasingly being recognized as essential dimensions of a quality health care experience, with further evidence demonstrating that they can be ...

Authors: Sara Guastello and Susan B Frampton

Introducing the Journal of Compassionate Health Care

No abstract

Authors: Sue Shea and Christos Lionis

Enhancing empathy in healthcare: mixed-method evaluation of a pilot project implementing the CARE Approach in primary and community care settings in Scotland

The importance of empathic, person-centred care that is responsive to the individual patients’ needs is increasingly visible in national and international healthcare policies but there is a need for practical ...

Authors: Niamh M Fitzgerald, Susie Heywood, Annemieke P Bikker and Stewart W Mercer

Pilot study of a compassion meditation intervention in chronic pain

The emergence of anger as an important predictor of chronic pain outcomes suggests that treatments that target anger may be particularly useful within the context of chronic pain. Eastern traditions prescribe ...

Authors: Heather L Chapin, Beth D Darnall, Emma M Seppala, James R Doty, Jennifer M Hah and Sean C Mackey

Re-inspiring compassionate caring: the reawakening purpose workshop

How best to strengthen compassion in healthcare has become a controversial subject, especially when governments attempt to ‘implement’ compassion through policy and regulation. This case study describes a work...

Authors: Robin Youngson