Brydges, RyanZeray, Merkeb2018-11-272023-11-052018-11-272023-11-052018-11http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/14549Background: Compassionate care is a hallmark of quality health care in any health system. However, this issue only has got attention very recently in the Ethiopian context. In addition, there is no locally applicable measurement tool to assess the compassionate care practice in the Ethiopian context. Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess the validity of the Schwartz Center Compassionate Care Scale and to measure compassionate care practice among oncology patients at Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital. Methods: An institutional based cross-sectional study supplemented by qualitative approach was conducted from March- May 2018. A total of 423 oncology patients were selected using a systematic random sampling technique. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize socio-demographic and clinical characteristic of the study participants. Construct validity and reliability analyses were conducted to determine the psychometric property of the tool and then compassionate care practice was measured. The analysis was done by statistical package for social science version 23.0, Amos version 23 and Open code version 4.02. Results: Two hundred seventy five (66.4%) of the participants were females. The mean age of the participants was 47 and breast cancer was the leading cause of facility visit 122 (29.5%). The Schwartz Center Compassionate Care Scale is a two factor structure with a good model fit and has high scale reliability of 0.88 and 0.83, 0.84 subscale reliability respectively. The overall compassionate care practice was found to be 45.7% and high patients’ flow, bed shortage and being treated by different physicians were among the factors that identified to be a barrier for compassionate care practicing. Conclusion and recommendations: The Schwartz Center Compassionate Care Scale can be applied to measure compassionate care practice in the Ethiopian context and the practice is found to be low. Actions should be taken to improve the compassionate care practice.en-USCompassionate care,Construct validity and reliability analysesThesis