[Compassionate nursing care: the experience of italian nurses]

In international nursing literature compassion and compassionate care has acquired a considerable importance and it's considered to be a growing phenomenon. The approach to the application of compassionate care to patients is clearly not well-defined in Italian nursing. The aim of this study is to define what compassionate care is through the analysis of Italian nurses' experiences.

The research is based on a qualitative method. Content analysis was used to analyze the transcript data. The research has been carried out by creating three focus groups, for a total of 15 nurses.

All the participants expressed their opinions freely. The outcomes of the analysis can be grouped in four areas: definition of compassion and compassionate care; categorisation of patients; provision of care; and formation and training in compassionate care. The survey has shown contrasting opinions, negative opinions such as feelings of rejections and positive opinions such as love, charity, empathy and support. The last one (support) in particular has highlighted the importance of involving the patient's relatives in providing compassionate care.

It is difficult to define exactly the meaning of compassion and compassionate care.This study has contributed to extend and deep the current knowledge in regard of the concept of compas-sionate care applied to assistance entities. Further research is needed in the field of compassionate care to strength the effectiveness of assistance provided by nurses.