Measurement of Clinical Compassion in Nursing Students

Although compassion is essential in clinical settings because it stimulates nurses to take positive action to alleviate the suffering of patients, a psychometrically validated instrument that measures comprehensively the multidimensional construct of clinical compassion in nurses has not yet been developed. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Simulated Assessment of Clinical Compassion (SACC) to measure three dimensions of compassion (the values of dignity, worth, and emotional investment) underpinned by Jean Watson’s theory of human caring, grounded in the healing of the whole person, and focusing on the interconnectedness of mind, body, spirit, emotion, and environment. In Phase I the content and face validity of the SACC was examined by a panel of 12 experts as focus group (n=12) and by 37 accelerated nursing students in a pilot study (n=37), and convenience group of 88 nursing students. Phase II involved administering the final version of the SACC to collect quantitative data from 62 (n=62) nursing students attending Niagara University. However, the construct validity, discriminant validity, and internal consistency reliability of the values of dignity, worth, and emotional investment could not be confirmed. The SACC scores for two of the 15 items were positively correlated with the nursing year (1, 2, 3, or 4). When nursing year was held statistically constant, the total score of the 15 items for the female students was significantly higher (p < .05) than that of the male students. Because it has not been validated, the SACC cannot, in its present format, be recommended for use in educational settings or nursing practice. A new qualitative instrument using open-ended qualitative questions is recommended to test the compassion readiness of nursing students for clinical practice based on the principles of hermeneutic phenomenology.