Heritage visits impact on compassion in NHS workers

Abstract

NHS workers experience chronic stress, heavy workloads, and increasing pressures, leading to high rates of burnout and voluntary resignations, compounding pressure on the workforce. This crisis in NHS staff wellbeing requires innovative approaches which maximize existing resources and promote self-help strategies. An under-researched resource for wellbeing is visiting heritage sites. Heritage sites are more than cultural landmarks; they have been increasingly recognized as spaces that foster well-being, social connection, and mental restoration. Over 99% of people in England live less than one mile from a listed heritage asset. This mixed-method paper investigated whether self-directed visits to heritage sites foster compassion and diminish compassion fatigue amongst at-risk NHS staff with subclinical levels of wellbeing at three time points over a six-month period.

Quantitative data were collated from the Santa Clara Brief Compassion Scale and a visual analogue scale measuring self-reported feelings of compassion, which were analysed using repeated measures. Qualitative data ascertained participants' experiences of visits to heritage sites and analyzed using reflective thematic analysis. A total of 295 participants took part. Of those, 103 participants visited heritage sites.

Objective measures of compassion did not show a statistically significant overall increase at a group level (i.e. visitors and non-visitors), however compassion levels significantly improved for visitors to heritage sites, particularly for self-reported compassion. The significant increase in compassion levels following their visit was sustained over time. Qualitative analysis of participants’ experiences of visiting heritage sites resulted in several key themes aligned with the Compassion Resilience Model, particularly in the domains of mindfulness, common humanity, and self-kindness. Findings provide a nuanced understanding of how visits to heritage sites can support wellbeing and highlight the potential of visits to heritage sites as a novel, indirect self-compassion intervention that enhances compassion to others.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Stephanie Barker: orcid.org/0000-0002-2886-4113

ORCID for Nick Maguire: orcid.org/0000-0003-4295-8068

ORCID for Bryony Whitmarsh: orcid.org/0000-0002-5801-0418

ORCID for Jason Sadler: orcid.org/0000-0001-8260-6812

ORCID for Joanna Sofaer: orcid.org/0000-0001-6328-8636

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