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Interventions for compassionate nursing care: a systematic review

Interventions for compassionate nursing care: a systematic review
Interventions for compassionate nursing care: a systematic review
Background: Compassion has been identified as an essential element of nursing and is increasingly under public scrutiny in the context of demands for high quality health care. While primary research on effectiveness of interventions to support compassionate nursing care has been reported, no rigorous critical overview exists.

Objectives: To systematically identify, describe and analyse research studies that evaluate interventions for compassionate nursing care; assess the descriptions of the interventions for compassionate care, including design and delivery of the intervention and theoretical framework; and to evaluate evidence for the effectiveness of interventions.

Review methods: Published international literature written in English up to June 2015 was identified from CINAHL, Medline and Cochrane Library databases. Primary research studies comparing outcomes of interventions to promote compassionate nursing care with a control condition were included. Studies were graded according to relative strength of methods and quality of description of intervention. Narrative description and analysis was undertaken supported by tabulation of key study data including study design, outcomes, intervention type and results.

Results: 25 interventions reported in 24 studies were included in the review. Intervention types included staff training (n=10), care model (n=9) and staff support (n=6). Intervention description was generally weak, especially in relation to describing participants and facilitators, and the proposed mechanisms for change were often unclear. Most interventions were associated with improvements in patient-based, nurse-based and/or quality of care outcomes. However, overall methodological quality was low with most studies (n=16) conducted as uncontrolled before and after studies. The few higher quality studies were less likely to report positive results. No interventions were tested more than once.

Conclusions: None of the studies reviewed reported intervention description in sufficient detail or presented sufficiently strong evidence of effectiveness to merit routine implementation of any of these interventions into practice. The positive outcomes reported suggest that further investigation of some interventions may be merited, but high caution must be exercised. Preference should be shown for further investigating interventions reported as effective in studies with a stronger design such as randomised controlled trials.
0020-7489
1-35
Blomberg, Karin
729aa51e-44ff-4541-9c32-f267f9de6fb6
Griffiths, Peter
ac7afec1-7d72-4b83-b016-3a43e245265b
Wengstrom, Yvonne
5175b2bd-3bff-4df7-9ce5-415915562f58
May, Carl
17697f8d-98f6-40d3-9cc0-022f04009ae4
Bridges, Jackie
57e80ebe-ee5f-4219-9bbc-43215e8363cd
Blomberg, Karin
729aa51e-44ff-4541-9c32-f267f9de6fb6
Griffiths, Peter
ac7afec1-7d72-4b83-b016-3a43e245265b
Wengstrom, Yvonne
5175b2bd-3bff-4df7-9ce5-415915562f58
May, Carl
17697f8d-98f6-40d3-9cc0-022f04009ae4
Bridges, Jackie
57e80ebe-ee5f-4219-9bbc-43215e8363cd

Blomberg, Karin, Griffiths, Peter, Wengstrom, Yvonne, May, Carl and Bridges, Jackie (2016) Interventions for compassionate nursing care: a systematic review. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 1-35. (doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2016.07.009).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Background: Compassion has been identified as an essential element of nursing and is increasingly under public scrutiny in the context of demands for high quality health care. While primary research on effectiveness of interventions to support compassionate nursing care has been reported, no rigorous critical overview exists.

Objectives: To systematically identify, describe and analyse research studies that evaluate interventions for compassionate nursing care; assess the descriptions of the interventions for compassionate care, including design and delivery of the intervention and theoretical framework; and to evaluate evidence for the effectiveness of interventions.

Review methods: Published international literature written in English up to June 2015 was identified from CINAHL, Medline and Cochrane Library databases. Primary research studies comparing outcomes of interventions to promote compassionate nursing care with a control condition were included. Studies were graded according to relative strength of methods and quality of description of intervention. Narrative description and analysis was undertaken supported by tabulation of key study data including study design, outcomes, intervention type and results.

Results: 25 interventions reported in 24 studies were included in the review. Intervention types included staff training (n=10), care model (n=9) and staff support (n=6). Intervention description was generally weak, especially in relation to describing participants and facilitators, and the proposed mechanisms for change were often unclear. Most interventions were associated with improvements in patient-based, nurse-based and/or quality of care outcomes. However, overall methodological quality was low with most studies (n=16) conducted as uncontrolled before and after studies. The few higher quality studies were less likely to report positive results. No interventions were tested more than once.

Conclusions: None of the studies reviewed reported intervention description in sufficient detail or presented sufficiently strong evidence of effectiveness to merit routine implementation of any of these interventions into practice. The positive outcomes reported suggest that further investigation of some interventions may be merited, but high caution must be exercised. Preference should be shown for further investigating interventions reported as effective in studies with a stronger design such as randomised controlled trials.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 8 July 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 13 July 2016
Organisations: Faculty of Health Sciences

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 398108
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/398108
ISSN: 0020-7489
PURE UUID: f36503f6-a68d-4d7a-985a-638f05a99865
ORCID for Peter Griffiths: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2439-2857
ORCID for Carl May: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-0451-2690
ORCID for Jackie Bridges: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6776-736X

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Date deposited: 19 Jul 2016 09:13
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 05:45

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Contributors

Author: Karin Blomberg
Author: Peter Griffiths ORCID iD
Author: Yvonne Wengstrom
Author: Carl May ORCID iD
Author: Jackie Bridges ORCID iD

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