Journal of Nursing Research Perspectives

Abstract

Background: Nurses and advanced practitioners (APs) work in clinical environments where compassion is expected, yet the conditions needed to sustain compassion are challenged by workload pressure, emotional labour, staffing constraints and exposure to distressing clinical events. Compassion-focused continuing professional development (CPD) may provide protected space for staff to reflect on self-compassion, psychological safety, peer support and compassionate leadership.

Aim: To evaluate the acceptability, relevance and usefulness of The Compassion Lab, a one-day RCN Foundation Amin Abdullah Grant-funded CPD event for nurses and APs.

Method: A one-day face-to-face CPD event was delivered at an off-site venue in September 2026. The event focused on self-compassion, psychological safety, compassionate leadership, trauma-informed practice and peer support. Anonymous post-event feedback was collected using a Microsoft Forms questionnaire. Rating responses were summarised descriptively. Free-text responses were reviewed using pragmatic qualitative content analysis to identify patterns in delegate learning, understood value, barriers to application and suggestions for future delivery.

Findings: 17 anonymous feedback responses were received. All respondents consented to anonymised use of their feedback. 15 respondents rated the event as very useful and two rated it as useful. Thirteen respondents rated it as very relevant to their role or clinical area and four rated it as relevant. Five themes were identified: self-compassion as professional sustainability; psychological safety and compassionate leadership; supporting colleagues after difficult clinical events; barriers to applying learning in practice; and the need for practical, team-based and scenario-based future delivery.

Conclusion: The Compassion Lab was acceptable, relevant and useful to delegates. Feedback suggests that compassion-focused CPD can provide a valued reflective space for nurses and APs, but future delivery should include more clinical scenarios, wider team access and follow-up evaluation to understand whether learning is applied in practice.