Improvements in Compassion and Fears of Compassion throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Multinational Study

Marcela Matos; Kirsten McEwan; Martin Kanovský; Júlia Halamová; Stanley R Steindl; Nuno Ferreira; Mariana Linharelhos; Daniel Rijo; Kenichi Asano; Sara P Vilas; Margarita G Márquez; Sónia Gregório; Gonzalo Brito-Pons; Paola Lucena-Santos; Margareth da Silva Oliveira; Erika Leonardo de Souza; Lorena Llobenes; Natali Gumiy; Maria Ileana Costa; Noor Habib; Reham Hakem; Hussain Khrad; Ahmad Alzahrani; Simone Cheli; Nicola Petrocchi; Elli Tholouli; Philia Issari; Gregoris Simos; Vibeke Lunding-Gregersen; Ask Elklit; Russell Kolts; Allison C Kelly; Catherine Bortolon; Pascal Delamillieure; Marine Paucsik; Julia E Wahl; Mariusz Zieba; Mateusz Zatorski; Tomasz Komendziński; Shuge Zhang; Jaskaran Basran; Antonios Kagialis; James Kirby; Paul Gilbert

doi:10.3390/ijerph20031845

Improvements in Compassion and Fears of Compassion throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Multinational Study

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 19;20(3):1845. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20031845.

Authors

Marcela Matos¹, Kirsten McEwan², Martin Kanovský³, Júlia Halamová⁴, Stanley R Steindl⁵, Nuno Ferreira⁶, Mariana Linharelhos¹, Daniel Rijo¹, Kenichi Asano⁷, Sara P Vilas⁸, Margarita G Márquez⁸, Sónia Gregório^{1

8}, Gonzalo Brito-Pons⁹, Paola Lucena-Santos¹, Margareth da Silva Oliveira¹⁰, Erika Leonardo de Souza¹¹, Lorena Llobenes¹², Natali Gumiy¹², Maria Ileana Costa¹², Noor Habib¹³, Reham Hakem¹³, Hussain Khrad¹³, Ahmad Alzahrani¹³, Simone Cheli¹⁴, Nicola Petrocchi¹⁵, Elli Tholouli¹⁶, Philia Issari¹⁶, Gregoris Simos¹⁷, Vibeke Lunding-Gregersen¹⁸, Ask Elklit¹⁹, Russell Kolts²⁰, Allison C Kelly²¹, Catherine Bortolon^{22

23}, Pascal Delamillieure^{24

25}, Marine Paucsik²², Julia E Wahl^{26

27}, Mariusz Zieba²⁷, Mateusz Zatorski²⁷, Tomasz Komendziński^{28

29}, Shuge Zhang³⁰, Jaskaran Basran², Antonios Kagialis⁶, James Kirby⁵, Paul Gilbert²

Affiliations

¹ University of Coimbra, Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention (CINEICC), 3004-531 Coimbra, Portugal.
² Centre for Compassion Research and Training, College of Health, Psychology and Social Care, University of Derby, Derby DE22 1G, UK.
³ Institute of Social Anthropology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, 814 99 Bratislava, Slovakia.
⁴ Institute of Applied Psychology, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Comenius University, 814 99 Bratislava, Slovakia.
⁵ Compassionate Mind Research Group, School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia.
⁶ Department of Social Sciences, University of Nicosia, Nicosia 2417, Cyprus.
⁷ Department of Psychological Counseling, Faculty of Psychology, Mejiro University, Tokyo 161-0032, Japan.
⁸ Behavior, Emotions, and Health Research Group, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Universidad Europea de Madrid, 28670 Madrid, Spain.
⁹ Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago 8331150, Chile.
¹⁰ Evaluation and Treatment in Cognitive and Behavioral Psychotherapies-Research Group (GAAPCC), Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre 90619-900, Brazil.
¹¹ Conectta: Mindfulness & Compassion, São Paulo 04038-001, Brazil.
¹² Motivación Compasiva, Buenos Aires C1001, Argentina.
¹³ Neuroscience Department, Section of Psychiatry and Psychology, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (KFSH&RC), Jeddah 11564, Saudi Arabia.
¹⁴ School of Human Health Sciences, University of Florence, 50121 Florence, Italy.
¹⁵ Department of Economics and Social Sciences, John Cabot University, 00165 Rome, Italy.
¹⁶ Center for Qualitative Research in Psychology and Psychosocial Well-Being, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 157 72 Athens, Greece.
¹⁷ Department of Educational and Social Policy, University of Macedonia, 546 36 Thessaloniki, Greece.
¹⁸ Mindwork Psycological Center, 1620 Copenhagen, Denmark.
¹⁹ Department of Psychology, University of Southern Denmark, 5230 Odense, Denmark.
²⁰ Department of Psychology, Eastern Washington University, Cheney, WA 99004, USA.
²¹ Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada.
²² Laboratoire Inter-Universitaire de Psychologie: Personnalité, Cognition et Changement Social, Grenoble Alpes University, 38400 Grenoble, France.
²³ Centre Hospitalier Alpes Isère, C3R-Réhabilitation Psychosociale et Remédiation Cognitive, 38100 Grenoble, France.
²⁴ CHU de Caen, Service de Psychiatrie Adulte, 14000 Caen, France.
²⁵ UNICAEN, ISTS, GIP Cyceron, University of Normandy, 76000 Caen, France.
²⁶ The Mind Institute Poland, 33-332 Warsaw, Poland.
²⁷ Institute of Psychology, Department of General Psychology, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, 03-815 Warsaw, Poland.
²⁸ Department of Cognitive Science, Nicolaus Copernicus University, 87-100 Torún, Poland.
²⁹ Neurocognitive Laboratory, Centre for Modern Interdisciplinary Technologies, Nicolaus Copernicus University, 87-100 Torún, Poland.
³⁰ School of Human Sciences, University of Derby, Derby DE22 1G, UK.

Abstract

During large-scale disasters, social support, caring behaviours, and compassion are shown to protect against poor mental health outcomes. This multi-national study aimed to assess the fluctuations in compassion over time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Respondents (Time 1 n = 4156, Time 2 n = 980, Time 3 n = 825) from 23 countries completed online self-report questionnaires measuring the flows of compassion (i.e., Compassionate Engagement and Action Scales) and fears of compassion toward self and others and from others (i.e., Fears of Compassion Scales) and mental health at three time-points during a 10-month period. The results for the flows of compassion showed that self-compassion increased at Time 3. Compassion for others increased at Time 2 and 3 for the general population, but in contrast, it decreased in health professionals, possibly linked to burnout. Compassion from others did not change in Time 2, but it did increase significantly in Time 3. For fears of compassion, fears of self-compassion reduced over time, fears of compassion for others showed more variation, reducing for the general public but increasing for health professionals, whilst fears of compassion from others did not change over time. Health professionals, those with compassion training, older adults, and women showed greater flows of compassion and lower fears of compassion compared with the general population, those without compassion training, younger adults, and men. These findings highlight that, in a period of shared suffering, people from multiple countries and nationalities show a cumulative improvement in compassion and reduction in fears of compassion, suggesting that, when there is intense suffering, people become more compassionate to self and others and less afraid of, and resistant to, compassion.

Keywords: COVID-19; compassion; fears of compassion; longitudinal; multilevel modelling; multinational study; pandemic.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Aged
COVID-19* / epidemiology
Empathy*
Fear / psychology
Female
Humans
Male
Pandemics
Self Report

Grants and funding

The overall research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. This work was supported by the Center for Research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Behavioral Intervention (CINEICC) funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (M.M., Strategic Project UID/PSI/00730/2020). The Slovak arm of this study was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency (J.H. & M.K.; Contract no. PP-COVID-20-0074) and the Vedecká Grantová Agentúra VEGA (J.H.; Grant 1/0075/19). The Canadian arm of the study was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Insight Grant (A.K., ref. 435-2017-0062). The Brazilian arm was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (P.L.-S.; SFRH/BD/130677/2017) and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (M.S.O.; Scientific Productivity Grant).