Proposing a policy framework for nursing education for fostering compassion in nursing students: A critical review

Abstract

Aims To propose a policy framework for nursing education to foster compassion in nursing students. Design A critical review. Data sources Literature was searched in CINAHL, PubMed, Science Direct and Google Scholar and sources published from January 2008 ‐ April 2018 were reviewed. Review methods We screened abstracts and full‐texts using specific inclusion criteria, developed summary tables for data extraction and synthesized data logically to develop the framework. Results Twenty‐nine sources were reviewed. Recognizing, accepting, and alleviating patients’ suffering are direct indicators of compassionate care. Three policy directions were identified: ensure the nursing curriculum has an appropriate balance of teaching‐learning strategies that target learning in the affective domain, directly promote the use of reflection and the development of reflective thinking in students as an approach to enhance excellence in clinical practice and integrate information and assess students’ understanding and expression of compassion throughout the nursing curriculum. Conclusion Compassion is expressed when nurses authentically work to understand patients’ suffering and become sensitive to their experiences. Future research should focus on developing strategies that align with the affective domain and use reflection to optimize nursing students’ experiential learning. Impact Policies are needed for cultivating a compassionate care culture and for fostering students’ compassion, but no guidelines exist for nursing institutions. Targeting the affective learning domain, facilitating reflection, and integrating compassionate care indicators in clinical learning experiences can be useful. Therefore, nursing institutions can use these findings to integrate and measure compassionate care in clinical and educational curricula to foster students’ compassion.

Compassionate Engagement and Action in the Education for Health Care Professions: A Cross-Sectional Study at an Ecuadorian University

“…Exercising the Humanities makes the clinical setting value the history of suffering, meaning, and the need for the patient’s empathy and compassion [ 49 ]. This is the reason why we believe that it of utmost importance to cultivate a compassionate attitude in the Health Sciences student and to recover the true sense of service which humanizes the professional [ 11 , 13 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 ].…”

“…The importance of including educational contents related to compassionate care in the studies related to Health Sciences has been widely recommended in the literature [ 28 , 29 , 30 ]. Contents related to compassionate attitudes have helped to develop a reflexive practice, deal with the clinical challenges, and gain confidence in the health professionals, such as nurses [ 25 ].…”

The Role of Resonant Leadership, Workplace Friendship and Serving Culture in predicting Organizational Commitment: the Mediating Role of Compassion at Work

“…serving the needs of others first (Nowak, 2019), which has the potential to establish feelings of compassion among healthcare employees. Caring for others is important for healthcare organizations since this is the core responsibility of the employees in such a system (Younas & Maddigan, 2019). Thus, we propose the following hypothesis: H3: A perceived serving culture positively arouses feelings of compassion among healthcare employees.…”

“…nursing) (Bawafaa et al, 2015). Compassion during healthcare service work is also important as employees cannot serve patients in an efficient manner unless they feel their pain and then respond accordingly, while offering some tangible support (Younas & Maddigan, 2019). In the context of high pressure healthcare jobs, resonant leaders have this ability to emotionally heal their followers, which can easily lead to positive feelings, with compassion being no exception.…”

Determining the association of high‐commitment human resource practices with nurses’ compassionate care behaviour: A cross‐sectional investigation

“…The extant literature provides various definitions of CC. Feeling, recognizing and relieving the suffering of those in pain are indicators of CC, and compassion is practiced when nurses work to understand patients’ distress and suffering and propose strategies to alleviate that suffering (Durkin, Usher, & Jackson, ; Younas & Maddigan, ). Moreover, Tierney, Bivins, and Seers () shows that compassion is an intrinsic nursing value but does not take into consideration the emotional and practical resources necessary for providing CC and overlooks the organisational and managerial role of the provision of CC at clinical sites.…”