COMPASSION LEVEL OF NURSES TOWARDS PATIENTS AND ITS RELATED FACTORS IN THE HOSPITALS OF KASHAN UNIVERSITY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES

Patient compassion is critical in providing quality health services and is essential to nurses' job satisfaction. Therefore, this study aimed to determine compassion level of nurses towards patients and its related factors in the hospitals of Kashan University of Medical Sciences in 2021.

In this cross-sectional study, 400 nurses working in educational hospitals of Kashan University of Medical Sciences were selected by convenient sampling method in 2021. Then they completed the questionnaires of demographic information, patient compassion of Lee et. al., and job stress. The results were then analyzed by one-way analysis of variance, Pearson correlation, and stepwise regression using SPSS v16 statistical software.

The mean score of patient compassion was 65.99±5.37 (range from 17 to 85) in nurses which was high according to the percentage score of 77.6%. The results also showed that nurses’ the mean of total score of job stress was 112.73 ± 14.23 (range from 35 to 175) and was moderate in terms of job stress (64.4% score). Regression results showed that only three variables of work experience (ß = 0.173), job stress (ß = 0.121), and marital status (ß = 0.110) had significant relationships with compassion for the patient (p <0.05), and may predict the nurse's compassion towards patient.

According to the results of this research, it can be inferred that the nurse's compassion towards patient could be increased by managing stress in nurses and paying attention to their demographic factors.