Measuring Compassionate Care among Interprofessional Health Care Teams: Developing and Testing the Feasibility of a Collaborative Behaviors Observational Assessment Tool

Background: Few published instruments that enable the objective measurement of compassionate care exist. Simulation techniques allow for controlled settings in which interprofessional tools that assess compassionate care can be developed and tested. Method: Delphi methodologies were used to create a Collaborative Care Best Practices Model that identified key compassionate behaviors in a high-stress medical scenario. A Collaborative Behaviors Observational Assessment Tool (CBOAT) was derived from the Collaborative Care Best Practices Model to rate these compassionate behaviors and its feasibility was tested in a simulation. Results: Inter-rater reliability demonstrated that the CBOAT can support researchers and educators in observing and measuring compassionate care behaviors. Conclusions: The CBOAT can be used in a simulation setting to observe, measure, and help teach compassion which is an essential aspect of high-quality health care. (C) 2020 International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.