The Process of Compassionate Care Delivery by Nurses

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction: Compassionate care is one of the main criteria of quality of care from the perspective of patients, their family, health care provider and policymakers. Although compassionate care has been known as the essence of component of nursing care, but the process of compassionate care delivery by nurses has not been known based on the cultural context of our country. This study aimed to explore the process of compassionate care delivery by nurses. Methods: In this grounded theory, 21 nurse working in different area of teaching hospitals in Tabriz, Ahar, Urmia were selected by purposive and theoretical sampling. For completing of emerging categories and confirming of data, three patient were interviewed too. Data were collected by face to face deep interview and data analysis was performed by Corbin & Struass (2008) approach. Results: Analysis for context revealed three main category including "nurses capacity", "patients' characteristics", and "unsupportive organizational culture". The analysis of process included three main category of "communication", "to explore and understanding of patients' suffering", and "try as much as possible to relieve patients' suffering". The compassionate care outcomes were categorized in two main category of "satisfaction" and "burdon of compassion". The final analysis showed that compassionate care is a process in which the nurses communicate with a patient based on altruistic sense and try as much as possible to relieve their sufferings. Therefore, the core category of this study was "altruistic based caring interaction". Conclusion: According to the results we conclude that compassionate care delivery needs the deep interaction between nurse and patient. Nurses could develop an effective communication by using verbal and non verbal skills and they could reach the same understanding by the empathy sense which this helps to discover the patients’ suffering. On the other hand, according to the importance of organizational culture, the managers of health care organizations can take advantage of the facilities of the organization, encourage compassionate nurses, use of individual capacities of nurses and create expert teams to take practical steps to implement compassionate care programs. Moreover, decreasing the workload of nurses helps nurses and they experience the low amount of Burdon.