The Language of Compassion: Hospital Chaplains’ Compassion Capacity Reduces Patient Depression via Other-Oriented, Inclusive Language

Objectives Although hospital chaplains play a critical role in delivering emotional and spiritual care to a broad range of both religious and non-religious patients, there is remarkably little research on the best practices or “active ingredients” of chaplain spiritual consults. Here, we examined how chaplains’ compassion capacity was associated with their linguistic behavior with hospitalized inpatients, and how their language in turn related to patient outcomes. Methods Hospital chaplains (n = 16) completed self-report measures that together were operationalized as self-reported “compassion capacity.” Next, chaplains conducted consultations with inpatients (n = 101) in five hospitals. Consultations were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC). We used exploratory structural equation modeling to identify associations between chaplain-reported compassion capacity, chaplain linguistic behavior, and patient depression after the consultation. Results We found that compassion capacity was significantly associated with chaplains’ LIWC clout scores, a variable that reflects a confident leadership, inclusive, and other-oriented linguistic style. Clout scores, in turn, were negatively associated with patient depression levels controlling for pre-consult distress, indicating that patients seen by chaplains displaying high levels of clout had lower levels of depression after the consultation. Compassion capacity exerted a statistically significant indirect effect on patient depression via increased clout language. Conclusions These findings inform our understanding of the linguistic patterns underlying compassionate and effective chaplain-patient consultations and contribute to a deeper understanding of the skillful means by which compassion may be manifest to reduce suffering and enhance well-being in individuals at their most vulnerable.