Measuring
what matters.

More compassion, better care.
Stronger patient outcomes.

A robust and rigorous measure to improve compassion and enhance quality care for happier and healthier patients and practitioners.

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Animated patient talking with doctor using compassion measure

Patient informed, rigorously tested,
real-world results.

The Sinclair Compassion Questionnaire (SCQ) is the new gold standard for evaluating compassion. Built from the ground up with the sensibility of patients, the practicality of healthcare providers, and the science of researchers, the SCQ is the most reliable and valid patient reported compassion measure available. The SCQ has been validated in English, French, Mandarin, and Spanish with other languages on the way.

learn more about the science powering the SCQ

01. Features

The SCQ measures compassion and provides real-time solutions in clinical care.

Gain immediate, personalized, and actionable feedback on individual patient's care experience with a robust and easy to adminster questionnaire. The SCQ recognizes realtime challenges for agile changes in care.

Personalized

The SCQ Importance measure (SCQ-I) helps researchers and healthcare providers identify which aspects of compassion matter most to each patient and tailor their care experience.

No Restrictions

Every patient, all healthcare providers, no exceptions - the SCQ and adapted versions assess compassion across a number of diverse patient populations and care settings.

Fast and Scalable

From individual practitioners and researchers, to clinics and hospitals, the results provide immediate feedback and longterm metrics to continue growing.

Turn Data into Actions

Improve patients experience and healthcare provider wellbeing - the SCQ informs best practices, cultivates clinical cultures of compassion, and allows researchers to assess compassion interventions.

Better

Quality of Care

Compassion is the quintessential factor in patients' experience of quality care.

Patient Outcomes

Patients are happier, more satisfied, and experience improved health outcomes.

Healthcare Provider Wellbeing

Compassion is not just good for patients, it helps healthcare providers avoid occupational stress, burnout, and absenteeism.

Systems of Care

Measure, monitor, and improve compassion at an organizational and systems level.

Reduced

Patient Complaints and Litigation

More evidence and time to improve performance and inform care practices.

Healthcare spending

Improved patient outcomes, treatment adherence, and lower costs.

Distrust and Uncertainty

Empowers patients and families with data in deciding between care settings.

The Compassion Research Lab

Leading the world in evidence-based compassion research and resources.

Take a deeper dive into Dr. Sinclair's research and learn more about the art and science of compassion, how it impacts our daily lives, and the importance of compassion research in healthcare.

Visit the website!

03. How it Works

How it works in
Research and Practice.

Capture the patient's experience of compassion in minutes.

01. Administer the SCQ

Patient informed and reported. Evidence based metrics provides meaningful data to inform research and integrate into patients charts and electronic medical records.

02. Inform practices and assess interventions

Instant feedback on both patients preferences and experiences of compassion allows healthcare providers to modify care in real-time. Researchers can also use data to test compassion interventions.

03. Report Results

Establish benchmarks, identify variables, and identify compassion champions. Report and compare performance indicators within and across institutions.

03. licensing

Licensing.

Designed and accessible for individual practitioners, researchers, care teams, and healthcare organizations.

Individual

For individual healthcare providers wanting to assess and improve their patients experience of compassion.

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Research

For researchers interested in measuring and testing compassion interventions, experiences, and variables.

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Care Teams

For clinics and care teams wanting to understand and enhance their patients collective experience of compassion.

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Enterprise

For healthcare organizations that rely on accurate evidence based practices to improve patient outcomes and staff wellness.

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04. Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions.

Questions? Concerns? Start here.

What’s so special about compassion anyways—why measure compassion in comparison to patient satisfaction or other care experience assessments?

Compassion is the pinnacle of caring and is the distinguishing factor between good care and great care. Satisfaction surveys are susceptible to ceiling effects and are not intended to or capable of measuring the patient experience (i.e. patients can be highly satisfied with the treatments they received while their experience of how these treatments were delivered and their interaction with their healthcare providers may have been lacking).
While compassion shares some similar attributes to empathy, sympathy and standard care, it optimizes these shared attributes while adding additional attributes that patients want and increasingly expect. In short, shoot for the stars and in order to do so, you’ll need accuracy and fidelity.

How do I use and score the SCQ in research and practice?

The SCQ can be administered on paper or electronically after obtaining the appropriate licensing agreement.
Since the SCQ is a patient reported experience measure, it should be self-reported and administered by an individual (e.g. research assistant, or clinic manager, etc…) who is not a member of the patient’s care team.
While the SCQ can be administered at a single time point, it was intended to be administered on a routine basis (e.g. after each clinic visit; every 7 days of a long stay admission, etc...), allowing for comparisons of SCQ scores in an ongoing manner.
To score the SCQ, the individual response options must initially be coded as follows: (Strongly disagree = 1, Disagree = 2, Neutral = 3, Agree = 4, Strongly agree = 5). An overall score is obtained by summing all individual items and calculating a single mean score, in which a higher final score is indicative of a greater experience of compassion. A comprehensive user manual for the SCQ and adapted versions of the SCQ is available on the licensing page.

I’m a program leader, clinic manager, healthcare administrator, or systems leader that is interested in how aggregated data can be administered in a routine manner to improve care at a program or systems level?  

Administering the SCQ across programs or institutions allows leaders to assess and compare patients experiences of compassion between units, clinics and/or hospitals within the overall organization or health system. This information can be used to inform benchmarks for compassion, to identify programs or services that require additional support, and provide patients and families with organizational and institutional compassion scores to help them decide where they would like to receive care.

What was the thinking behind deciding to have patients provide feedback on their experience of compassion from a group of healthcare providers versus individual healthcare providers?

The decision to inquire about patients experiences of compassion experienced from their healthcare team versus individual healthcare providers was based on feedback from both subject matter experts, our patient advisory group and cognitive interviews with patients. Each of these groups felt that evaluating the care team as a whole was both congruent with the team model within each of our study care settings (acute care, long-term care and hospice) and their belief that a single uncompassionate interchange with one healthcare provider outweighed the positive experiences of compassion from the larger team in patients overall experience of compassion. In other words, according to patients, experiences of compassion in healthcare were equal to the sum total of all their interactions with each and every healthcare provider rather than an isolated compassionate interaction or a single compassionate care provider.

If you want to assess your patient's experience of compassion from you as an individual healthcare provider or therapist then be sure to check out the SCQ-Individual HCP and SCQ Discipline scales which have been adapted from the original SCQ to assess patient's experience of compassion from a single provider.

More questions? read more here