ArticleBMC palliative care2016
Compassion: a scoping review of the healthcare literature.
Article in BMC palliative care, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 158 papers, 10 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
158 citing papers in PubMed, 10 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 483 citations in OpenAlex.
- The efficacy of compassion and self-compassion training programs for healthcare university students: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC medical education · 2026Pooled it
- Interventions to reduce empathy-based stress and enhance compassionate care in mental health wards: a systematic review.BMC health services research · 2025Pooled it
- Empathy training in healthcare: an umbrella review.BMC medical education · 2025Pooled it
- Experience of compassionate care in mental health and community-based services for children and young people: facilitators of, and barriers to compassionate care- a systematic review.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- The impact of compassion-based interventions on perioperative anxiety and depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Journal of affective disorders · 2024Pooled it
- Predictors of Physician Compassion, Empathy, and Related Constructs: a Systematic Review.Journal of general internal medicine · 2022Pooled it
- A Systematic Review of Educational Interventions and Their Impact on Empathy and Compassion of Undergraduate Medical Students.Frontiers in medicine · 2021Pooled it
- Implementation Models of Compassionate Communities and Compassionate Cities at the End of Life: A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Pooled it
- Curricula for empathy and compassion training in medical education: A systematic review.PloS one · 2019Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Is compassion fatigue a self-fulfilling prophecy in health care? A preregistered experimental study of manipulated expectations in doctors and medical trainees.British journal of health psychology · 2025Trial
- Transformative learning experience among nursing students with patients acting as teachers: Mixed methods, non-randomized, single-arm study.Journal of advanced nursing · 2022Trial
- Trial
- Factors associated with supportive care needs in glioma patients in the neuro-oncological outpatient setting.Journal of neuro-oncology · 2017Trial
- Compassionate care at end of life and nurses' coping with the patient's death: a cross-sectional correlational study.International journal of nursing studies advances · 2026Article
- Measuring What Matters: Defining Compassion in Pediatric Cardiology.Pediatric cardiology · 2026Review
- Further Development and Validation of a Measure of Compassionate Healthcare in Action.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2026Article
- Developmental Systems Cardiology: A Longitudinal Adaptive Framework for Congenital Heart Disease.Pediatric cardiology · 2026Article
- Empathic Listening and Communication Competencies Among Oncology Healthcare Professionals in Croatia: A Cross-Sectional Study Conducted in 2025.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A feasibility study of an Evidence-informed, Competency-based, Accredited, Compassion Training (EnACT) program.BMC medical education · 2026Article
98 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundRecent concerns about suboptimal patient care and a lack of compassion have prompted policymakers to question the preparedness of clinicians for the challenging environment in which they practice. Compassionate care is expected by patients and is a professional obligation of clinicians; however, little is known about the state of research on clinical compassion. The purpose of this scoping review was to map the literature on compassion in clinical healthcare.
methodsSearches of eight electronic databases and the grey literature were conducted to identify empirical studies published over the last 25 years. Eligible studies explored perceptions or interventions of compassionate care in clinical populations, healthcare professionals, and healthcare students. Following the title and abstract review, two reviewers independently screened full-texts articles, and extracted study data. A narrative approach to synthesizing and mapping the literature was used. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Of 36,637 records, 648 studies were retrieved and 44 studies were included in the review. Less than one third of studies included patients. Six themes emerged from studies that explored perceptions of compassionate care: nature of compassion, development of compassion, interpersonal factors related to compassion, action and practical compassion, barriers and enablers of compassion, and outcomes of compassion. Intervention studies included two compassionate care trials with patients and eight educational programs that aimed to improve compassionate care in clinicians and students.
conclusionsThis review identifies the limited empirical understanding of compassion in healthcare, highlighting the lack of patient and family voices in compassion research. A deeper understanding of the key behaviors and attitudes that lead to improved patient-reported outcomes through compassionate care is necessary.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.