The Effect of Compassionate Care Education on Nurses

Overview

Compassion is an important concept underlying relationships between people. Compassion is a complex, multifaceted psychological and social process. Professional values form the basis of nursing care. The concept of compassion is one of these professional values, as well as one of the essential components of care that facilitates nursing care. Compassion-based care provides patient-centered care with a holistic approach while increasing the quality of care. Despite this importance, many healthcare professionals remain inadequate regarding compassionate care. The idea that compassion is innate or learned in people causes various difficulties in teaching compassion. Compassionate care is an emotion that can be taught and developed with innovative interactive methods along with developing technology. Methods such as video-supported teaching and case analysis, which are widely used in nursing education, contribute to developing cognitive and affective skills such as interpretation, critical thinking, and problem-solving in nurses. In this context, it is aimed to implement compassionate care training, developed based on Watson's Human Caring Model, on nurses by enriching it with video-supported teaching and case analysis methods, and to evaluate the effect of this training on nurses' compassion levels and caring behaviors.

The research will be conducted as a single group pre-test-post-test quasi-experimental study to determine the effect of compassionate care training, which will be given using video-assisted teaching and case analysis methods according to Watson's Human Caring Model, on nurses' compassion levels and caring behaviors. The universe of the research will consist of 220 nurses working in the Surgery Clinic, Internal Medicine Clinic, Intensive Care Unit and Emergency Department at Kırıkkale University Faculty of Medicine Hospital between 20.12.2025 and 20.02.2026. The power of the study was measured with the G\*Power 3.1.9.2 package program. The sample size was calculated with a medium effect width. Accordingly, the minimum sample size to be studied for 95% power at a significance level of 0.05 and an effect width of 0.5 was predicted to be 54. The research aims to reach 60 people, considering the losses. The sample will consist of nurses who meet the research criteria, are not on leave during the research period, and agree to participate in the research. Implementation of the Research: Preparation phase: "Preparation of the Content of the Compassionate Care Education Program to be Given According to Watson's Human Care Model" Compassionate care training for nurses, based on Watson's Human Caring Model, has been developed in accordance with literature. The training is planned in four sessions. In sessions 2, 3, and 4, videos from the prepared scenarios will be shown, and case studies will be conducted with the nurses (six case scenarios containing compassionate care behaviors and six scenarios containing negative versions of the same scenario without compassionate care behaviors, for a total of 12 scenarios). Implementation of the Study During the implementation phase of the study, pre-tests will be conducted between December 20, 2025, and February 20, 2026, by asking all nurses, for whom written consent has been obtained, to complete the "Descriptive Characteristics Form," the "Compassion Competence Scale," and the "Caring Behaviors Scale." All nurses in the sample group will receive compassionate care training implemented according to Watson's Human Caring Model. During the second, third, and fourth sessions of the training, videos taken from the prepared scenarios will be watched, and case studies will be conducted with the nurses. Following this four-week training program, post-test measurements will be taken by asking them to complete the "Compassion Competence Scale" and the "Caring Behaviors Scale." After the compassionate care training implemented according to Watson's Human Caring Model, the "Compassion Competence Scale" and "Caring Behaviors Scale" measurements will be repeated at the end of the first and second months. The training will be delivered in groups of 12 nurses, depending on their work schedules. Nurses will be divided into groups of 12, and the same training session will be delivered face-to-face to five different groups on different days that week, outside of working hours, at the nurses' convenience, in a meeting room at the hospital. After the training, nurses will be asked to complete a "Nurse Feedback Form on Compassionate Care Training."