Compassion is a cornerstone of high-quality care, enhancing the experience of both patients and healthcare providers. A significant step forward in measuring this vital element is the development of the Sinclair Compassion Questionnaire (SCQ). Recently, we partnered with our research colleagues at the University of Turin to validate the Italian version of the SCQ (SCQit).
The study involved 131 cancer patients, with the SCQit demonstrating strong validity and reliability, confirming its single-factor structure through rigorous statistical analyses. In addition to validating the SCQit, findings also revealed that patients in hospitals, as well as those with higher prognostic awareness, reported lower compassion scores than patients in hospice and those with lower prognostic awareness. Interestingly, patients practicing a religious faith reported greater compassion from their healthcare providers compared to those who didn't practice a religious faith.
These results fortify the SCQit as a valid and reliable tool for measuring patient-reported compassion, among Italian speaking populations--joining our existing English, French, Mandarin, and Spanish versions of the SCQ that have been previously validated and are now being used across the globe. Its application in clinical settings can provide invaluable insights, helping healthcare professionals tailor their approaches to meet the compassion related needs of each individual patient. Additionally as an embedded domain of quality care surveys, the SCQ provides researchers, system analysts, and senior leaders with the ability, for the first time, to identify the integral role compassion plays on physician ratings, quality care ratings, and the overall patient experience. Ultimately, fostering compassion not only enhances patient care but also supports the well-being of healthcare providers, making it an essential focus of high quality care across the globe.
The original open-access research article associated with this post can be accessed for free here: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1478951524001202
Check out the SCQ Video Tutorials to learn about the development, validation, and using the different versions of the SCQ in research, clinical practice and system analysis. https://www.compassionmeasure.com/gettingstarted
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