Start date – April 2015; End date – January 2016

PI: Stephanie Tierney (Warwick)

Collaborators: Kate Seers (Warwick), Liz Tutton (Warwick), Joanne Reeve (Warwick)

Description: Compassion has received increasing attention within healthcare over recent years. The term ‘compassionate care’ is now seen frequently in health services policy, practice and academic literature. Yet despite its prominence, little research has investigated how compassionate care is enacted and what it means to healthcare professionals. Therefore, this study will explore the concept of compassionate care from the perspective of these individuals. It is important to develop further knowledge on the delivery of compassionate care to better understand what may make it difficult to act in this way. Type 2 diabetes was selected as a critical case to explore this topic because it is increasingly prevalent, long-term and involves sustained interactions within health services. A grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2014) is underpinning the work, which allows for an understanding of social processes.

Progress: Semi-structured interviews (n=13) and focus groups (n=4) have been conducted with doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants, dieticians and podiatrists. Analysis, consisting of coding, constant comparison and memo writing, is in progress to interpret professionals’ perceptions of the nature and delivery of compassionate care. Future funding applications will be developed based on this study’s findings.