ABSTRACT Aims To understand the current situation of nurses' compassion competence and analyse the characteristics and influencing factors of different categories of nurses' compassion competence based on latent profile analysis, to provide a theoretical basis for formulating targeted compassion training programmes. Design A cross‐sectional study. Methods From June to October 2023, 550 nurses from tertiary grade A hospitals in Shandong province were selected by convenience sampling and investigated by utilising a demographic characteristics questionnaire, the Compassion Competence Scale for the Nurses, the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale and the Maslach Burnout Inventory‐Human Service Survey. Latent profile analysis was performed to explore the potential categories of nurses' compassion competence, and single‐factor analysis and logistic regression analysis were used to explore the related influencing factors. Results A total of 513 nurses were included. The compassion competence of nurses could be divided into four categories: the compassion competence deficient group (7.56%), the compassion competence low‐imbalanced group (15.35%), the compassion competence high‐balanced group (50.38%) and the compassion competence excellent group (26.70%). Department, years of working, humanistic care training experience, whether work is supported by colleagues and leaders, mindfulness and job burnout were the influencing factors of different potential categories (all p < 0.05). Conclusion There are four categories into which nurses' compassion competency can be categorised. Nursing managers and medical institutions can formulate precise training methods that enhance nurses' compassion competency based on the traits of various nurse categories in order to improve the quality of nursing service. Impact The results of this study help to understand the categories and heterogeneity of nurses' compassion competence and provide a basis for nursing managers and medical institutions to improve the compassion competence of different categories of nurses. Patient or Public Contribution All participants were nurses who completed an electronic questionnaire related to this study.
Li et al. (2025) studied this question.