Reliability and validity evaluation of the Chinese version of the Sussex-Oxford Compassion Scales for nurses

Compassion not only helps nurses to develop strong trusting relationships with patients, but also enables nurses to effectively assess patients’ needs, and ultimately improves clinical outcomes for patients. Currently, there is no specialized tool in China to evaluate nurses’ compassion. The aim of this study was to test psychometric properties of the Sussex-Oxford Compassion Scales (SOCS) in Chinese culture. A convenience sampling method was employed to recruit 429 nurses from two general hospitals in Zunyi City, Guizhou Province, China. With the consent of the original author, the scale was translated according to the Brislin model, and item analysis, reliability, and validity testing were performed using general data and the Chinese version of the scale. The SOCS includes two subscales, the SOCS-S and the SOCS-O. Exploratory factor analysis identified five factors of the two subscales, which explained 73.396% and 67.692% of the total variance, respectively. Confirmatory factor analysis showed good fit of the SOCS-S (χ 2 /df = 1.452, RMSEA = 0.046, SRMR = 0.031, CFI = 0.969, TLI = 0.964, IFI = 0.970), SOCS-O (χ 2 /df = 1.335, RMSEA = 0.040, SRMR = 0.035, CFI = 0.969, TLI = 0.963, IFI = 0.969). Convergent validity was confirmed. For SOCS‑O, CR ranged from 0.796 to 0.867 and AVE ranged from 0.494 to 0.620; for SOCS-S CR ranged from 0.847 to 0.888 and AVE ranged from 0.581 to 0.666. The I-CVI values for both SOCS-O and SOCS-S were 0.83-1.00. The S-CVI/Ave for the SOCS-O and SOCS-S was 0.94 and 0.97, respectively. The Cronbach’s α of the SOCS-S and the five dimensions was 0.934, 0.892, 0.884, 0.870, 0.876, 0.848, respectively. The Cronbach’s α of the SOCS-O and the five dimensions were 0.895, 0.838, 0.847, 0.791, 0.838,0.839, respectively. The test-retest reliability for the SOCS-S and the five dimensions were 0.908, 0.878, 0.824, 0.721, 0.865, 0.714 respectively, and for the SOCS-O and the five dimensions were 0.892, 0.748, 0.898, 0.808, 0.719, 0.833, respectively. Pearson correlation analysis showed the correlation coefficients between the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) and SOCS-S, SOCS-O, and the total score of SOCS were 0.530, 0.509 and 0.562, respectively. The Chinese version of the SOCS has good reliability and validity and is suitable for measuring the level of compassion of nurses in China. It can help nursing administrators systematically evaluate and understand the status quo of nurses’ self-compassion and compassion for others, and provide evidence and theoretical basis for developing and carrying out targeted comprehensive interventions to improve nurses’ compassionate ability.