Compassion from a palliative care perspective.

Background: Compassion is a core virtue in medicine and lies at the heart of good medical care. It connects us to each other and reflects our need for relationships with others.

Aim: Our aim is to explore how palliative care patients perceive, understand and experience compassion from health professionals, and to inform clinical practice.

Methods: Seven hospice managers in the North Island of New Zealand were contacted and invited to join the study. Twenty participants expressed a desire to participate and were involved in semi-structured face-to-face interviews. A set of questions guided the interviewers with interviews lasting between 15-60 minutes.

Results: In regards to the question, what is your understanding of compassion?, four central themes emerged: connection, presence and warmth, respect and caring. When asked, what advice can you give to trainee health professionals?, participants articulated four themes: connecting with patients and talking in a way they can understand, treating the person with respect, showing interest in them and being a positive presence for them.

Conclusions: Compassion was seen as a connection between the carer and the patient. Compassion is having a positive presence and warmth; an attitude of respect and caring. The main advice given by research participants to enhance compassion is for doctors and nurses to connect, to talk in a way that can be understood, and show interest and respect to patients facing the end of their lives.