ArticleHealth expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy2015
In search of compassion: a new taxonomy of compassionate physician behaviours.
Article in Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 61 citations in OpenAlex.
- Scaling Compassion and Applications in ABA.Behavior analysis in practice · 2026Article
- Identifying physicians' views on compassionate care in daily clinical practice: a multicentre Q-methodology study in Belgium.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Compassionate Behavior of Clinical Faculty: Associations with Role Modelling and Gender Specific Differences.Perspectives on medical education · 2025Article
- Compassion, communication, and the perception of control: a mixed methods study to investigate patients' perspectives on clinical practices for alleviating distress and promoting empowerment during awake craniotomies.British journal of neurosurgery · 2024Article
- Compassionate care during the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC nursing · 2024Article
- Item development for a patient-reported measure of compassionate healthcare in action.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2024Article
- Transpersonal Caritas Relationship: A new concept from the unitary caring science framework of Jean Watson.Investigacion y educacion en enfermeria · 2023Review
- More than a feeling? What does compassion in healthcare 'look like' to patients?Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2022Article
- What is the Most Valid and Reliable Compassion Measure in Healthcare? An Updated Comprehensive and Critical Review.The patient · 2022Review
- Communication between neonatologists and parents when prognosis is uncertain.Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2020Article
- Palliative Care for Cancer Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic, With Special Focus on Lung Cancer.Frontiers in oncology · 2020Article
- Compassion in the Clinical Context: Constrained, Distributed, and Adaptive.Journal of general internal medicine · 2020Article
- Understanding compassion for people with dementia in medical and nursing students.BMC medical education · 2019Article
- Do Physicians Dream of Electric Sheep: Examining the Conflict Between Compassion and Technology.The Yale journal of biology and medicine · 2018Review
- Ethological observations of social behavior in the operating room.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- How can the perceptions and experiences of medical educator stakeholders inform selection into medicine? An interpretative phenomenological pilot study.MedEdPublish (2016) · 2018Article
- Eloquent silences: A musical and lexical analysis of conversation between oncologists and their patients.Patient education and counseling · 2016Article
- Compassion training in healthcare: what are patients' perspectives on training healthcare providers?BMC medical education · 2016Article
- Compassion: a scoping review of the healthcare literature.BMC palliative care · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundCompassion has been extolled as a virtue in the physician-patient relationship as a response to patient suffering. However, there are few studies that systematically document the behavioural features of physician compassion and the ways in which physicians communicate compassion to patients.
objectiveTo develop a taxonomy of compassionate behaviours and statements expressed by the physician that can be discerned by an outside observer.
designQualitative analysis of audio-recorded office visits between oncologists and patients with advanced cancer. SETTING AND
participantsOncologists (n = 23) and their patients with advanced cancer (n = 49) were recruited in the greater Rochester, New York, area. The physicians and patients were surveyed and had office visits audio recorded.
main outcome measuresAudio recordings were listened to for qualitative assessment of communication skills.
resultsOur sensitizing framework was oriented around three elements of compassion: recognition of the patient's suffering, emotional resonance and movement towards addressing suffering. Statements of compassion included direct statements, paralinguistic expressions and performative comments. Compassion frequently unfolded over the course of a conversation rather than being a single discrete event. Additionally, non-verbal linguistic elements (e.g. silence) were frequently employed to communicate emotional resonance. DISCUSSION AND
conclusionsThis study is the first to systematically catalogue instances of compassionate communication in physician-patient dialogues. Further refinement and validation of this preliminary taxonomy can guide future education and training interventions to facilitate compassion in physician-patient interactions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.