University Nursing Report: Compassion and Competence in Patient Care

This report delves into the critical attributes of compassion and competence within nursing practice, emphasizing their direct link to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) code of conduct. The report discusses Roach's six attributes of care, specifically focusing on compassion and competence. Compassion is defined as understanding others' pain and discomfort, and competence is presented as the technical skill and knowledge necessary for effective patient care. The report connects these attributes to the NMBA's principles, highlighting how compassion aligns with person-centered care and professional behavior, while competence is linked to the efficient treatment and professional development. The report references relevant literature to support the importance of these attributes in ensuring patient satisfaction, professional growth, and ethical nursing standards, including the handling of sensitive situations like the death of a patient. The report underscores the significance of these attributes in creating a trustworthy healthcare environment and ensuring high-quality patient care.

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Care is an essential component for nursing practice as it guarantees patient satisfaction
and professional development. The knowledge in this profession is mostly based on care and
safety of the patients. Several scientists and medical experts keep researching about the science
of care as it needs more light and focus for the development of nursing practice (Cannaerts,
Gastmans & Casterlé, 2014). Roach’s developed six attributes that can help a nurse to
demonstrate care to both patients and their family. It includes compassion, competence,
confidence, conscience, commitment, and comportment. The two components that will be linked
to the NMBA code of conduct for the nurses will be compassion and competence (Caranto,
2015).
The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) is a body that looks after the
welfare of nurses and patients under their care. The functions of this board is set by the Health
Practitioner Regulation National Law, which also functions for the state and territory. The
NMBA develops standards, guidelines and code of ethics for the safe practice of midwives and
nurses (Cowin et al., 2019). It has a set code of conduct for the nurses, which has 7 principles
according to different domains. The domain of practice safely, effectively and collaboratively
has the principle of person centered care that includes nursing practice, decision making,
informed consent and adverse events and disclosure (Forrester, 2018). This principle is linked to
Roach’s Compassion because it focuses on the wellbeing of the patient through the feeling of
mercy and empathy. Prioritizing the patient’s health before anything else and being
compassionate about their issues. The domain of act with professional integrity has the principle
of professional behaviour, which includes, professional boundaries, advertising and professional
representation, legal insurance and other assessments, conflicts of interest, financial arrangement
and gifts (Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au, 2020). This guideline is linked to competence because

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it focuses on the efficient treatment and technical knowledge in medical science. Competence
also helps in professional development as it is seen from the guidelines. These domains indicate
that compassion and competence are linked to these guidelines as it similar and focuses on
patient wellbeing through these attributes.
The two of Roach’s 6 C is compared to the NMBA code of conduct as those attributes are
found in the code of conduct. All these principles are directly linked to the two C’s of Roach’s
care attribute known as compassion and competence. Compassion is the feeling of understanding
other people’s pain and discomfort including the feelings of the family. The guideline aims for
the nurses to have more compassion for the wellbeing of their patients so that they can trust the
healthcare system for their care and comfort. The involvement of compassion is seen in person
centered care and cultural practice and respectful relationships (Bloomfield & Pegram, 2015).
One of the hardest thing is to understand the grief of the death of a loved one and the nurses
should be compassionate with the families through person centered practice (Durkin, Gurbutt &
Carson, 2018). Similarly, competence is the demonstration of technical care in patients that helps
the nurses to assess and evaluate the condition of the patient so that they can alert the patient’s
family about the forthcoming events. Competence is basically the skill, knowledge and judgment
to understand the patient’s condition and working on it with the help of relevant medical
management. It can be maintained through the principle of teaching supervising and assessing
and professional development (Jho & Chae, 2014).

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References
Bloomfield, J., & Pegram, A. (2015). Care, compassion and communication. Nursing Standard
(2014+), 29(25), 45, doi: 10.7748/ns.29.25.45.e7653
Cannaerts, N., Gastmans, C., & Casterlé, B. D. D. (2014). Contribution of ethics education to the
ethical competence of nursing students: Educators’ and students’ perceptions. Nursing
ethics, 21(8), 861-878, doi: 10.1177/0969733014523166
Caranto, L. C. (2015). Coalescing the theory of Roach and other truthseekers. International
Journal of Nursing Science, 5(1), 1-4, doi: 10.5923/j.nursing.20150501.01
Cowin, L. S., Riley, T. K., Heiler, J., & Gregory, L. R. (2019). The relevance of nurses and
midwives code of conduct in Australia. International nursing review, 66(3), 320-328,
doi: 10.1111/inr.12534
Durkin, M., Gurbutt, R., & Carson, J. (2018). Qualities, teaching, and measurement of
compassion in nursing: A systematic review. Nurse education today, 63, 50-58, doi:
10.1016/j.nedt.2018.01.025
Forrester, K. (2018). Codes of Conduct-A New Era for Nursing and Midwifery in
Australia. Journal of law and medicine, 25(4), 929-933, retrieved from
https://europepmc.org/article/med/29978676
Jho, M. Y., & Chae, M. O. (2014). Impact of self-directed learning ability and metacognition on
clinical competence among nursing students. J Korean Acad Soc Nurs Educ, 20(4), 513,
doi: 10.5977/jkasne.2014.20.4.513

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Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au. (2020). Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia -
Professional standards. Retrieved 9 April 2020, from
https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Professional-
standards.aspx