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Abstract Objective Compassion is important to patients and their families, predicts positive patient and practitioner outcomes, and is a professional requirement of physicians around the globe. Yet, despite the value placed on compassion, the empirical study of compassion remains in its infancy and little is known regarding what compassion ‘looks like’ to patients. The current study addresses limitations in prior work by asking patients what physicians do that helps them feel cared for. Methods Topic modelling analysis was employed to identify empirical commonalities in the text responses of 767 patients describing physician behaviours that led to their feeling cared for. Results Descriptively, seven meaningful groupings of physician actions experienced as compassion emerged: listening and paying attention (71% of responses), following‐up and running tests (11%), continuity and holistic care (8%), respecting preferences (4%), genuine understanding (2%), body language and empathy (2%) and counselling and advocacy (1%). Conclusion These findings supplement prior work by identifying concrete actions that are experienced as caring by patients. These early data may provide clinicians with useful information to enhance their ability to customize care, strengthen patient–physician relationships and, ultimately, practice medicine in a way that is experienced as compassionate by patients. Public Contribution This study involves the analysis of data provided by a diverse sample of patients from the general community population of New Zealand.

Although compassion in healthcare differs in important ways from compassion in everyday life, it provides a key, applied microcosm in which the science of compassion can be applied. Compassion is among the most important virtues in medicine, expected from medical professionals and anticipated by patients. Yet, despite evidence of its centrality to effective clinical care, research has focused on compassion fatigue or barriers to compassion and neglected to study the fact that most healthcare professionals maintain compassion for their patients. In contributing to this understudied area, the present report provides an exploratory investigation into how healthcare professionals report trying to maintain compassion. In the study, 151 professionals were asked questions about how they maintained compassion for their patients. Text responses were coded, with a complex mixture of internal vs. external, self vs. patient, and immediate vs. general strategies being reported. Exploratory analyses revealed reliable individual differences in the tendency to report strategies of particular types but no consistent age-related differences between older and younger practitioners emerged. Overall, these data suggest that while a range of compassion-maintaining strategies were reported, strategies were typically concentrated in particular areas and most professionals seek to maintain care using internal strategies. A preliminary typology of compassion maintaining strategies is proposed, study limitations and future directions are discussed, and implications for the study of how compassion is maintained are considered.

Abstract Background Despite considerable efforts to address practical barriers, colorectal cancer screening numbers are often low. People do not always act rationally, and investigating emotions may offer insight into the avoidance of screening. The current work assessed whether fear, embarrassment, and disgust predicted colorectal cancer screening avoidance. Methods A community sample (N = 306) aged 45+ completed a questionnaire assessing colorectal cancer screening history and the extent that perceptions of cancer risk, colorectal cancer knowledge, doctor discussions, and a specifically developed scale, the Emotional Barriers to Bowel Screening (EBBS), were associated with previous screening behaviours and anticipated bowel health decision-making. Results Step-wise logistic regression models revealed that a decision to delay seeking healthcare in the hypothetical presence of bowel symptoms was less likely in people who had discussed risk with their doctor, whereas greater colorectal cancer knowledge and greater fear of a negative outcome predicted greater likelihood of delay. Having previously provided a faecal sample was predicted by discussions about risk with a doctor, older age, and greater embarrassment, whereas perceptions of lower risk predicted a lower likelihood. Likewise, greater insertion disgust predicted a lower likelihood of having had an invasive bowel screening test in the previous 5 years. Conclusions Alongside medical and demographic factors, fear, embarrassment and disgust are worthy of consideration in colorectal cancer screening. Understanding how specific emotions impact screening decisions and behaviour is an important direction for future work and has potential to inform screening development and communications in bowel health.

This study examines the associations among interpersonal dependency, social support, and crying proneness, since crying is a behavior that is particularly relevant to the affiliative interpersonal goals characterizing maladaptive forms of dependency (Keltner & Kring, 1998). Data were collected from 305 first-year university students (M age = 18 years). A series of hierarchical linear regressions, controlling for gender, commuting status, romantic relationship status, stress, loneliness, and depressive symptoms, partially supported our hypotheses. That is, we found that a measure of maladaptive dependency (destructive overdependence, or DO) and crying proneness were positively correlated, and that DO moderated the associations between social support and crying proneness. Specifically, we found that social support and crying were more closely positively associated among individuals high on DO compared to individuals low on DO. Our findings imply that interpersonal dependency may be an important factor in understanding individual differences in crying, and in determining whether crying is a successful elicitor of social support.

Although health care utilization occurs in interpersonal contexts, little is known regarding how interpersonal preferences or styles among patients may be relevant. A small body of work has identified links between attachment—a dispositional style of relating to others—and patterns of health care use. The current report examined how attachment characteristics predicted the frequency of digital rectal exam and prostate-specific antigen testing in a sample of African-descent men. Four hundred and fourteen African-descent men aged 45 to 70 years completed measures of prostate screening and attachment, together with measures of traditional predictors of screening (demographics, insurance, family history, physician variables, knowledge, perceived risk, and accessibility). Consistent with predictions, dismissiveness—the most common relational style among older men—predicted less frequent prostate-specific antigen testing and digital rectal examination. However, attachment security—a comfort with intimate relationships—also predicted lower screening frequency. Identifying the interpersonal characteristics predicting screening may help identify men at risk of suboptimal health care use and guide the development of interventions suited to the normative relational preferences of current cohorts of older, African-descent men.

Anxieties regarding cancer and screening have been consistently linked in prostate screening behavior with cancer-related anxieties generally thought to be higher among minority men. To date, however, the literature linking cancer anxieties to screening among diverse men remains predicated on self-reported anxiety. Research has yet to consider how “accurate” the reporting of anxiety may be among distinct groups of men or the possibility that anxiety may influence prostate cancer (PC) screening behavior through conscious and nonconscious channels; the current study tested for discrepancies between self-report and Stroop-ascertained general- and prostate-specific anxiety and their links to screening among 180 U.S.-born African American, U.S.-born European American, and immigrant Jamaican men. Men provided self-report information regarding trait and prostate-related anxiety and completed an emotional Stroop task. Mixed model ANOVAs showed that while U.S.-born African Americans had few discrepancies between self-report and Stroop-ascertained anxiety, Jamaicans reported greater PC anxiety than indicated by Stroop performance, while the opposite was true among U.S.-born Europeans. As expected, self-reported (but not Stroop-ascertained) PC anxiety predicted screening in multivariate analysis. Although men from different age and ethnic groups varied in the discrepancy between self-reported and Stroop-ascertained PC anxiety, the influence of avoidance-producing emotions appears to operate predominantly through conscious channels.

Emotional and cognitive characteristics have been studied in the context of women’s cancer screening but have received scant attention in the study of men’s screening behavior. Researchers know little about how such factors interact to predict screening or whether digital rectal examination (DRE) and prostate specific antigen (PSA) screens are predicted by the same characteristics. This study examines the relevance of emotional and cognitive characteristics to DRE and PSA screening among 180 U.S.-born African American, U.S.- born European American, and immigrant Jamaican men. The study identifies the expected effects in which fear is negatively related and efficacy beliefs positively related to DRE and PSA screening. Greater efficacy and (marginally) knowledge appear to “offset” the negative impact of fear on screening, and fear appears particularly relevant to DRE frequency. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for the development of health belief and self-regulatory models in the context of prostate cancer screening among minority men.

IntroductionAdolescents with type 1 diabetes are at a higher risk of developing psychiatric disorders, particularly eating disorders, compared with their healthy peers. In turn, this increases the risk for sub-optimal glycaemic control and life-threatening diabetes-related complications. Despite these increased risks, standard diabetes care does not routinely provide psychological support to help prevent or reduce mental health risks. There is an urgent need to develop ‘clinically usable’ psychosocial interventions that are acceptable to patients and can be realistically integrated into clinical care. This study aims to examine the feasibility and acceptability of a brief self-compassion intervention for adolescents with type 1 diabetes and disordered eating behaviour.Methods and analysisThis feasibility study will examine the effectiveness of a brief self-compassion intervention, compared with a waitlist control group. Participants aged 12–16 years will be recruited from three diabetes outpatient clinics in Auckland, New Zealand. The brief self-compassion intervention is adapted from the standardised ‘Making Friends with Yourself’ intervention and will be delivered in a group format over two sessions. Apart from examining feasibility and acceptability through the flow of participants through the study and qualitative questions, we will assess changes to disordered eating behaviour (primary outcome), self-care behaviours, diabetes-related distress, self-compassion, stress and glycaemic control (secondary outcomes). Such data will be used to calculate the required sample size for a fully powered randomised controlled trial.Ethics and disseminationThis trial has received ethics approval from the Health and Disability Ethics Committee (research project number A+8467). Study results will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journals and conferences.Trial registration numberANZCTR (12619000541101).