The Nurse Faculty Compassion Instrument: A Methodological Study

As nursing shortages rise, nursing faculty have the important responsibility of increasing the number of nursing school graduates that enter the nursing profession. Unfortunately, attrition and retention continue to prevent nursing students from graduating on time or at all. Nursing faculty compassion has been identified as one important factor that could decrease nursing student attrition and increase nursing student retention and program completion. Compassion is a concept built upon the constructs of forming connections, empathetic behaviors, student suffering and faculty recognition of needs, and alleviation of suffering. No existing instruments measure all of these constructs. Some existing tools that measure faculty supportive and caring behaviors; however, currently, no valid and reliable instruments are available to evaluate the entire concept of compassion as it applies to nursing faculty. This deficit led to this methodological study of the development and testing of the Nursing Faculty Compassion Instrument (NFCI), which was conducted in four phases.