Critical thinking stop point 20.1

Answer to: do you think compassion involves empathy, personal reward and/or spiritual beliefs?

This is quite a complicated question. Let’s take one thing at a time:

Empathy: Mercer & Reynolds (2002: S9) describe empathy as :

‘a complex multi-dimensional concept that has moral cognitive emotive and behavioural components Clinical empathy involves an ability to: (a) understand the patient's situation, perspective, and feelings (and their attached meanings); (b) to communicate that understanding and check its accuracy; and (c) to act on that understanding with the patient in a helpful (therapeutic) way.’

With this definition in mind, it is clear that this level of insight into a person’s perspective and experience could help to make care compassionate. If we care, we find out about a person, their likes and dislikes. Compassionate care takes accounts of their choices and preferences.

Personal reward: This is a tricky one. The person in receipt of care should always be the focus of the care and the person that benefits from the care/intervention. Care should always be designed to be in the service user’s best interests. That’s not to say that the care-giver (the nurse) can’t get some sort of personal reward in the form of a sense of achievement. Ultimately, we become nurses because we care and because we do derive a sense of benefit and reward by the very act of assisting a person to feel better and to recover.

Spiritual belief: Nursing care should always consider the whole person. We need to provide care which meets their physical, mental, social and spiritual needs, even if we don’t deliver every part of the care ourselves. Hence, we may enable care. For example, proving a time and space for worship, respecting their ‘Sabbath’ or ‘holy day’.