The effects of compassion-based feedback on wellbeing ratings during a professional assessment healthcare task

There is a need for higher education policy to consider how student nurses might be supported to help them to develop the resilience and mental wellbeing needed to cope with stressful environments. Reviews and qualitative research in this area suggest that compassion can improve wellbeing, however, compassion-based feedback is yet to be explored as a pedagogical intervention using quantitative methods. To explore the effect of different feedback types on subjective wellbeing. In this experimental design, nursing students were presented with three feedback types, ‘compassion-based feedback, simple descriptive feedback, and utilitarian feedback’ and were asked to provide post-trial ratings of subjective wellbeing, in relation to each type, whilst undertaking a nursing-related task. Participants also rated the helpfulness of ‘Type of Feedback’. We report a significant difference of ‘Type of Feedback’ with higher ratings of wellbeing when participants were presented with compassion-based feedback. Compassion-based feedback could lead to higher wellbeing in educational tasks related to nursing. •Compassion-based feedback can improve subjective wellbeing in a group of healthcare learners.•Feedback should be understood as a socio-cognitive process, rather than a purely cognitive one.•Our results contribute to contemporary knowledge regarding feedback processes and the potential impact of this on wellbeing.