Harnessing Compassion to Support Nurses’ Mental Health: A Qualitative Study

PurposeLiterature documenting mental health concerns among nurses is abundant, as is evidence that working conditions are a significant contributing factor. While conducting a study on the mental health experiences of seven professional cohorts in Canada, an unexpected finding was that for nurses struggling with their mental health, compassion profoundly shaped their experiences. This paper reports findings from a secondary analysis of the nursing cohort of this dataset to examine the role that compassion played in the experiences of nurses, their interprofessional relationships, and engagement with institutional policies and processes. Qualitative analysis of interviews with 52 nurses across Canada was conducted using interpretive description's inductive approach. Analysis was guided by the conceptual framework of Compassionate Communities.ResultsCompassion in the workplace impacted nurses' experiences of mental health, the process of requesting a leave of absence, and negotiating return to work. Nurses described how practicing in uncompassionate environments prompted them to engage in presenteeism at the expense of their own wellbeing, often missing the signs of their distress. Seeking help was deemed more complicated than remaining at work; leave of absence and return to work processes were marked by uncompassionate responses from managers and institutional procedures. Nurses encountered stigma when disclosing a mental health concern, negatively impacting their professional identity and interprofessional relationships.ConclusionsImplementing compassionate organizational practices and processes is instrumental in supporting nurses' mental health experiences and supporting psychologically safe work environments. This paper adds to the literature on compassion, compassionate communities, and nurses' mental health experiences.