Compassion, Mindfulness, and the Happiness of Healthcare Workers

Abstract

Context Decreased well-being of health care workers expressed as stress and decreased job satisfaction influences patient safety and satisfaction and cost containment. Self-compassion has garnered recent attention due to its positive association with wellbeing and happiness. Discovering novel pathways to increase the well-being of health care workers is essential. Objective This study sought to explore the influence of self-compassion on employee happiness in health care professionals. Design, Setting & Participants 400 participants (mean age 45 ± 14, 65% female) health care workers at a large teaching hospital were randomly asked to complete questionnaires assessing their levels of happiness and self-compassion, life conditions and habits. Measures Participants completed the Happiness Scale and Self-Compassion Scales, the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire as well as variables associated with wellbeing: relationship status, the number of hours spent exercising a week, attendance at a wellness facility and engagement in a regular spiritual practice. Results Self-compassion was significantly and independently associated with perceived happiness explaining 39% of its variance after adjusting for age, marital status, gender, time spent exercising and attendance to an exercise facility. Two specific subdomains of self-compassion from the instrument used, coping with isolation and mindfulness, accounted for 95% of the self-compassion effect on happiness. Conclusion Self-compassion is meaningfully and independently associated with happiness and well-being in health care professionals. Our results may have practical implications by providing specific self-compassion components to be targeted in future programs aimed at enhancing wellbeing in health care professionals.

Exploring the Factors Affecting Employee’s Satisfaction in Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) of Bangladesh: An Experience from Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC)

“…The higher degree of "Compassion" (Com) increases the "Employee's Satisfaction" (ES), and the greater value of "Self Sacrifice" (SS) increases the "Employee's Satisfaction" (ES) in NGOs in Bangladesh are not supported by the path coefficient analysis of this current study. The findings are not similar to many of the previous studies [73] [74] [95]. Although, these studies investigated that compassion is an organizational motivational instrument and self-sacrifice is individual's self-enthusiastic instrument to be content in an organization.…”

“…Compassion is defined as a "deep sense or quality of knowledge of the suffering of another, coupled with the wish to relieve it and it is associated with feelings of condolence, pity, sympathy, empathy, and commiseration" [72]. Self-compassion is meaningfully and independently associated with happiness and well-being in healthcare professionals [73]. Compassion competence was a factor influencing compassion satisfaction and burnout in the professional quality of life [74].…”

The mediating role of cognitive and affective empathy in the relationship of mindfulness with engagement in nursing

“…The work of health personnel is characterized by high psychological and emotional demands and a high level of perceived stress [3]. So the promotion of self-care and wellbeing of these professionals through strategies such as practicing mindfulness, become fundamental in maintaining optimum patient care [4][5][6].…”

“…It is based on the definition of empathy proposed by Cohen and Strayer [73], that is, the act of understanding and sharing the emotional context of another person. It has nine items distributed in two sub-scales corresponding to affective and cognitive empathy, answered on a five-point Likert-type scale (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). Higher scores are interpreted as indicating more intense empathic behavior.…”

A Worksite Wellness Intervention: Improving Happiness, Life Satisfaction, and Gratitude in Health Care Workers

“…A number of mechanisms used in the intervention may have accounted for this improvement in happiness, including enhanced mindfulness, 58 gratitude, 45 , 46 compassion, 47 acceptance, 48 , 49 meaning, 50 and forgiveness. 35 , 51 , 52 , 53 However, we did not explore the mechanism of increasing happiness in this study.…”