How Do You Measure Compassion?

Compassion is typically measured through self-report questionnaires that assess an individual's self-reported feelings of empathy, motivation to help others in need, and their actions towards alleviating suffering, with the most commonly used scale being the "Sinclair Compassion Questionnaire (SCQ)" which is considered the gold standard for measuring compassion in research settings.

This question has plagued me for years. Today I settled on an answer. I propose that you measure compassion by the extent to which you are able to prevent damage to or are able to mend damage from a broken human-spirit.

This task requires the broad cultivation of the following three things:

1) generosity-of-spirit;

2) open-heartedness; and

3) gentle-loving-kindness on the part of the caregiver.

While it may be difficult to imagine, these are all measurable factors that significantly influence a person's capacity to love themselves and others, and to effectively cope with mental, physical and spiritual health issues. They also appear to greatly affect the extent to which a person is likely to remain motivated and compliant with their discharge treatment plans as recommended to them by clinical care professionals.

In the absence of unconditionally responsive, supportive, and therapeutic care the entire community of healthcare will likely continue to fail, along with it individual health outcomes, and as a result, patients will continue to return to local hospital emergency rooms or urgent care facilities with the same recurring chief complaints/symptoms which contributes to further escalating costs to private insurance companies, the federal government and individual taxpayers.

Based on personal experience as a volunteer and as an employee in a hospital setting, I firmly believe that were an earnest effort made to consistently create an atmosphere of gentleness and warmth and a standard of practice that looks, feels and performs more like what we wish to see in those who come to us defeated, fearful, hungry for love, ill, troubled, and weakened in many respects that this would do more to produce a much higher success rate and one that could be more cost effectively sustained over the long-term than what it is primarily being produced in the marketplace today.

There is probably a very good chance that measurement scales currently exist that could quite easily be modified to closely track the key factors associated with this proposed measurement concept.

I contend that compassion can be simply measured by whether or not the recipient feels cared for.

Does anyone else have thoughts that they would be willing to share on this subject?

I happen to be very interested in coming at this from the perspective of coaching, mentoring and spiritually directing others who are seeking personal change and improved means for coping with addiction, anxiety, depression, disconnection, fear, meaninglessness, suicide, and self-harm.