October 2021
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Kindness and compassion are important for all of us, not least when working in healthcare. Patients inevitably tell us it is important to them, and we believe that most staff care deeply, but perhaps we lack the hard data to back up its impact; how to weigh sunshine? Lee et al1 followed up over a thousand members of the public (age range 27–101 years old) for just under 5 years, exploring their compassion towards others (CTO) and compassion towards self (CTS) across time. CTO was stable within individuals – one tends not to get more or less compassionate to others – but CTS changed with time in an inverse-U pattern (though peaking rather late at age 77). It might not surprise you that women tended to display greater CTO than men – it has been argued that there are evolutionary reasons for this, linked with typically greater child-rearing responsibilities – but, interestingly, there was no strong relationship between an individual's CTO and their CTS. Most importantly, greater CTO and CTS predicted better outcomes in one's own life and were associated with enhanced psychological and physical well-being, and reduced levels of loneliness. The study was not designed to determine causality, so it also remains possible that those with better physical and mental health will care more for themselves and others. Nevertheless, caring for others, as well as caring for yourself, appears to be good for you. The question for healthcare organisations is how we appropriately emphasise and appropriately recognise and reward these valuable and valued traits in our staff.