Creating a culture of respect and interprofessional teamwork on a labor and birth unit: a multifaceted quality improvement project

Compassionate communication: a scoping review

“…Some studies define compassionate communication as devoid of educating or advising (Marlow et al, 2012;Nosek et al, 2014;Arnesen-Trunzo, 2015;Nosek and Durán, 2017;Vazhappilly and Reyes, 2017;Hadsall Jakowich, 2020). However, many other studies talk about compassionate communication only in terms of how it can reduce the distress of another (Bayne et al, 2013;Cameron et al, 2015;Huffman, 2017;Schreckenbach et al, 2018), according to which a piece of advice or knowledge shared can be considered as a way to address others' needs/emotions and can be perceived as helpful by the recipients and thus contribute to the alleviation of the suffering at hand (Özcan et al, 2011;Suarez et al, 2014;Alshughry, 2018;Mann et al, 2020).…”

“…Though these antecedents or outcomes might not directly indicate the state of compassionate communication, consideration of all such variables helps develop the prerequisites for compassionate communication for different study contexts. For instance, authentic self-expression by the recipient can be considered a criterion for the effective communication of compassion towards the recipient, but few of the finalised studies mention this as part of the definition of compassionate communication (Strekalova et al, 2019;Mann et al, 2020;Yang and Kim, 2020). Comparably, a non-judgmental attitude towards the recipient has been mentioned as a central characteristic of compassionate communication in some studies (Cox and Dannahy, 2005;Pounds et al, 2018;Zandkarimi et al, 2019), as an antecedent of compassionate communication in some studies (Nerdrum and Høglend, 2003;Marlow et al, 2012;Taylor and Mamier, 2013;Wacker and Dziobek, 2018) and as both in some others (Falconer et al, 2019;Hadsall Jakowich, 2020).…”

“…Upon examining the developmental aspects of compassionate communication, it was observed that a few studies mentioned compassionate communication as a teachable skill that can be acquired (Nerdrum and Lundquist, 2008;McArthur and Fitzgerald, 2013;Cameron et al, 2015;Bottino and Manji, 2020), while a few others emphasised the inherent nature of the concept, suggesting that it may not be significantly altered through training (Sinclair et al, 2018;Araújo et al, 2019). However, some studies that considered compassionate communication as innate mentioned that it can be enhanced further through training (Vazhappilly and Reyes, 2017;Hindiarto et al, 2020;Mann et al, 2020). Some studies mentioned many prerequisites like baseline compassion, social expressivity, sincerity, etc., in an individual's personality as antecedents for the communicative skill of compassion to be developed (Nerdrum and Rønnestad, 2004;Ruiz-Moral et al, 2017;Lynch et al, 2019;D'souza et al, 2020), while some presumed all humans to be compassionate beings having the ability to learn the communicative skills of compassion (Nosek et al, 2014;Vazhappilly and Reyes, 2016;Mann et al, 2020).…”

“…However, some studies that considered compassionate communication as innate mentioned that it can be enhanced further through training (Vazhappilly and Reyes, 2017;Hindiarto et al, 2020;Mann et al, 2020). Some studies mentioned many prerequisites like baseline compassion, social expressivity, sincerity, etc., in an individual's personality as antecedents for the communicative skill of compassion to be developed (Nerdrum and Rønnestad, 2004;Ruiz-Moral et al, 2017;Lynch et al, 2019;D'souza et al, 2020), while some presumed all humans to be compassionate beings having the ability to learn the communicative skills of compassion (Nosek et al, 2014;Vazhappilly and Reyes, 2016;Mann et al, 2020). Incompatible evidence can be found in literature admitting that though developing the cognitive-affective quality of compassion is fundamentally difficult, the communicative skills of compassion are a teachable quality (Batt-Rawden et al, 2013;Fragkos and Crampton, 2020).…”

“…Based on the conceptualisations given in 9 articles, a nonjudgmental response (i.e., withholding negative judgment or abstaining from communicating personal evaluations of another's shortcomings) to another's compassion need could be identified as a salient characteristic of compassionate communication (Cox and Dannahy, 2005;Salazar, 2013;Arnesen-Trunzo, 2015;Vazhappilly and Reyes, 2017;Nafise and Ghazal, 2018;Falconer et al, 2019;Grondin et al, 2019;Zandkarimi et al, 2019;Hadsall Jakowich, 2020). Similarly, deference (Tracy and Huffman, 2017;Hadsall Jakowich, 2020;Mann et al, 2020), authentic self-expression (Museux et al, 2016;Araújo et al, 2019;Hadsall Jakowich, 2020;Mann et al, 2020;Yang and Kim, 2020), positive language intensity (Tracy and Huffman, 2017), mindfulness (Way and Tracy, 2012), shared values/needs among dialogue partners (Vazhappilly and Reyes, 2017;Zandkarimi et al, 2019) were reported by few articles as basic elements of compassionate communication. Overall, inconsistencies could be seen regarding the role of non-judgmental attitude, empathy, compassion, listening, nonverbal immediacy, deference, authentic self-expression, positive language intensity, organisational immediacy, compassionate acts and shared values/needs among dialogue partners, that have been described as components/characteristics of compassionate communication in definitions given in some articles and as separate (i.e., correlates/predictors) in conceptual frameworks provided by a few other articles.…”