Current Status and Influencing Factors of Chinese Nurses' Compassion Competence: A Cross-Sectional Study

Compassion serves as the cornerstone for effective nurse-patient communication and humanistic nursing care, recognized as a vital component of emotional labour involved in nursing practice. However, research concerning the current status of nurses' compassion competence and its influencing factors remains limited. The primary aim of this study was to investigate the current status of compassionate competence among Chinese nurses and to identify its influencing factors-particularly the roles of personality traits and nursing work environments.

Between November 2024 and January 2025, a comprehensive survey was delivered to 300 nurses conveniently sampled from three institutes, utilizing the Demographic Information Scale for Nurses, the Chinese Big Five Personality Inventory, the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index and Compassion Competence Scale for the Nurses. Univariate analysis and multivariate analysis were utilized to provide a nuanced understanding of correlations between general information, personality traits and the nursing work environment. Additionally, Pearson correlation analysis was employed to evaluate the associations between compassion abilities, personality traits and the nursing work environment.

The average compassion competence score among the participants was 62.52 ± 9.94, indicating a moderate level of compassion. Various factors were identified as independently influencing nurses' compassion competence, including years of work experience, monthly income, working in gynaecology or paediatrics, participation in nurse-patient communication training, openness in personality traits and the nursing work environment. Collectively, these factors accounted for 44.9% of the variation in compassion competence scores.

This study examined the prevailing state of nurses' compassion competence and undertook in-depth exploration of the various factors that shape it. Findings offer insights for developing training measures to enhance nurses' emotional connections with patients and reduce compassion fatigue, ultimately improving nursing quality and service development in China.

What is already known about this topic? Compassion competence constitutes the fundamental basis for fostering therapeutic relationships with patients and exerts a profound influence on the quality of nursing services. Despite extensive research conducted on compassion competence in other countries, the exploration of this topic within the Chinese context remains relatively limited. What this paper adds? This study clarified nuanced distinctions between compassion and empathy within the framework of nursing practice. Factors identified to significantly influence compassion competence include years of work experience, monthly income, departmental assignment, engagement in nurse-patient communication training, individual personality traits and the overall nursing work environment. The Agreeableness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Openness dimensions (A, E, C and O) of personality traits, along with the nursing work environment, exhibit statistically significant positive correlations with nurses' compassion competence. The implications of this paper: Study findings offer fresh insights into the formulation of strategies aimed at enhancing nurses' compassion competence. Nursing administrators can tailor training programs to be more personalized, taking into account nurses' individual personality traits and the specific nursing work environment. By doing so, they can not only bolster compassion competence but also mitigate the risk of compassion fatigue, ultimately safeguarding the emotional well-being and fostering the professional sustainability of the nursing workforce.