Assessing and comparing compassionate communities benefits across cities in diverse cultural contexts: a step toward the identification of the most important ones.

Background
As Compassionate Communities (CCs) are developing worldwide, there is a growing need to systematically assess if they are having the expected effects on the community. Although having a single strategy would be ideal in terms of standardization and comparison, due to the inherent heterogeneity of CCs, it is not known how feasible this would be.
Objectives
To assess the feasibility of creating a general strategy, based on the results of a series of focus groups conducted across three diverse CCs, to guide the evaluation of already existing programs and the development of new ones.
Design
Focus groups in three cities, including different types of stakeholders, were conducted to identify potential outcomes (benefits) from CCs, as the base of a general strategy to assess CCs.
Methods
We coded the discussions and built a list of the outcomes mentioned. Then, we merged those similar enough into a more general one that encompassed the others. We extracted from reviews all the CCs outcomes that have been measured. We merged the outcomes from the focus groups and the reviews and built a single list.
Results
We obtained a final list of 46 outcomes; 44 were reported from the focus groups, and two more were added from the reviews. Of the 44 from the focus groups, 22 (50%) were present in the three CCs, 14(32%) were present in two CCs, and the remaining 8 (18%) were present only in one compassionate community. There were outcomes commonly reported both in the three CCs and in the literature reviews related to training the general community in compassion and end-of-life topics, facilitating the development of community networks, and generating public spaces for social integration.
Conclusion
Half of the identified outcomes were reported in the three CCs. This indicates the feasibility of creating a single strategy but also reflects the need to leave room to include other aspects specific to each community according to its context in the assessment.

Plain language summary
Measuring the benefits of compassionate communities around the world: moving towards the identification of the most important benefits Compassionate Communities (CC) aim to support people in need by fostering a culture of care and compassion in neighborhoods and other social spaces. It is important to know if these communities are working and bringing the benefits as intended and to help new ones develop effectively. However, since every region is different socially and culturally, creating a single list of benefits might be challenging. In our study, we wanted to see if it is possible to develop a general list of benefits that can be used to assess how existing Compassionate Communities are working and guide the creation of new ones. We conducted focus groups in three diverse cities, involving various stakeholders to gather their insights. These discussions helped us identify different positive outcomes (benefits) that CCs might achieve. We held 14 focus groups and analyzed the discussions to compile a list of outcomes. We then combined similar outcomes and included additional outcomes from scientific papers. In total, we identified 46 outcomes, with 44 coming from our focus groups and 2 from the scientific papers. Out of the 44 focus group outcomes, half were reported in all three cities, 32% were seen in two cities, and the remaining 18% were unique to one city. Some common outcomes across all three cities and the scientific papers included educating the community about compassion and end-of-life issues, creating community networks, and providing public spaces for social integration. Our findings suggest that some core outcomes are consistent across different Compassionate Communities, indicating the possibility of creating a unified list of outcomes (benefits). However, the list should also be flexible enough to include outcomes specific to each community’s unique context. This approach could help ensure that Compassionate Communities are effectively supporting their members while being adaptable to different cultural and socioeconomic environments.