Compassion is important to everyone in health care. However, research concludes that compassion is becoming endangered due to mounting pressures and technological advancements. The Compassion Research Lab is committed to putting compassion back where it belongs, at the heart of health care.
Dr. Sinclair and his team, including co-Principal investigator Dr. Thomas Hack from the University of Manitoba, developed a scientific measure to assess, monitor and improve compassion in health-care research and clinical practice. The Sinclair Compassion Questionnaire (SCQ) is based on data gathered from more than 600 patients in acute care, long-term care and hospice settings in a study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
Sinclair’s SCQ is a valid and reliable patient-reported compassion measure to allow researchers, health-care providers, system leaders and governments to assess, monitor and improve patients’ experience of compassion. Sinclair and his team developed the 15-question SCQ to be administered to patients on a routine basis to measure their ongoing experience of compassion from their health care providers in real time. The results from all questions are added up and averaged to provide health-care providers with a comprehensive, patient-reported compassion score.
Additional Resources
Compassion Research Lab: Advancing the art and science of compassion
What Would the World Look Like If We Prioritized Compassion?