Short summary

This Compassion Project evaluates the student & staff Compassion training at Esbjerg Hospital. Compassion is becoming aware of one's own or others' suffering - and a desire or motivation to alleviate that suffering Eight weeks-courses of training will be conducted: 1 Acknowledge that suffering is present 2 Understand that suffering is human 3 Feel empathy for the sufferer and connect with the sufferer 4 Tolerate the unpleasant feelings that arise 5 Feel motivated to alleviate the suffering

Rationale

Background. Running and managing a hospital will be very challenging over the coming years due to the declining workforce, tight financial framework, the number of elderly people increasing, and the increasing number of treatment options.

Working in a hospital - and especially in the clinical departments - is characterized by great meaning. For clinical staff, it is crucial to help, care and heal every day and to see that the work makes sense and has significance.

Working in a hospital is also a job with high emotional demands, which confronts clinical staff with pain, suffering, illness, and death. It makes great demands on empathy and on the ability to handle painful emotions.

It also makes great and different demands on managers, as the new generation of employees is super motivated, creative, hardworking, and oriented towards the community and their future. They need to be seen, listened to, included, and recognized; they expect a focus on professional as well as personal development. They are good at drawing boundaries and very aware of the balance between work and private life, which requires great profit and new skills in management.

Compassion efforts at the hospital

It is thus crucial and necessary to have a very strong focus on the working environment and staff well-being to be an attractive workplace in the future, to ensure recruitment and retention. It is necessary to invest in efforts that strengthen staff resilience and ability to care.

Compassion training is an evidence-based effort to improve well-being, increase a good working environment, and ensure healthy relationships at work. Furthermore, it has a decisive effect on patients' treatment, survival, and experience of security and involvement. Managers' well-being and working environment are crucial for staff to thrive, develop and engage. Immediate managers' understanding of and training in compassion is significant for their own and the employees' well-being. Furthermore, the function managers' knowledge of and training in compassion is crucial for Esbjerg & Grindsted Hospital to become a compassionate hospital, where all departments have a compassionate approach to management daily and not least to the care of staff, and care and treatment of the patients.

The future of healthcare leaders requires personal development work. Compassion training can contribute to the manager's personal development. In a busy everyday life with many agendas, it is central that the function manager is in balance and knows himself well. The leader of the future dares to have doubts and show vulnerability, they must be able to coach and generate enthusiasm. In compassion training, for example, the manager gets very close to his value base. At the same time, conscious presence is trained, the ability to separate one's feelings and experiences from those of others. In general, all abilities are trained based on a psychologically safe working environment.

Aim: To evaluate the impact of Compassion training at Esbjerg & Grindsted Hospital

Description of the cohort

The cohort comprises medical students, nurse students and employess at Esbjerg & Grindsted Hospital

Data and biological material

Data will be questionnaire data

Collaborating researchers and departments

Esbjerg Hospital

• Lone Svenningsen
• Helle Lisle