Effective interventions to support compassionate patient- and self-care requires an understanding of how to best assess compassion. Micro-ecological momentary assessment (micro-EMA), a method in which participants provide brief responses in real-time within their own environments, can capture changes in compassion across time and contexts. This study examined a micro-EMA approach for measuring the temporal dynamics of compassion in medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical students (N = 47) completed demographic information and self-report questionnaires assessing empathy and compassion for self and others. Participants then completed six bursts of micro-EMA smartphone-delivered surveys. Each burst was 14 days, with 28 days between bursts. During each burst, participants received four daily micro-EMA surveys assessing compassion, stress, positive affect, and negative affect. Dynamic structural equation modeling was used to examine micro-EMA responses. The overall micro-EMA response rate was 83.75%. On average, daily compassion did not significantly change across the academic year. However, there was significant within-person variability in medical students’ compassion trajectories over the training year (b = 0.027, p < .01). At concurrent timepoints, micro-EMA assessed compassion was associated with greater happiness (b = 0.142, p < .001) and lower stress (b = −0.052, p < .05) but was not associated with sadness. In lagged analyses, higher micro-EMA assessed compassion predicted higher next day happiness (b = 0.116, p < .01) and vice versa (b = 0.185, p < .01). Results suggest it is feasible to use micro-EMA to assess daily levels of compassion among medical students. Additionally, there is wide variability in day-to-day fluctuations in compassion levels among medical students, with some students showing substantial increases in daily compassion across the training year and others showing decreases. Positive affect as opposed to negative affect may have particularly strong associations with compassion. Further examination of antecedents and consequences of fluctuations in daily compassion could inform potent intervention targets.

支持富有同情心的患者和自我护理的有效干预措施需要了解如何最好地评估同情心。微生态瞬时评估（micro-EMA）是一种参与者在自己的环境中实时提供简短反应的方法，可以捕捉随时间和环境变化的同情心变化。本研究探讨了一种微型 EMA 方法，用于测量 COVID-19 大流行期间医学生同情心的时间动态。医学生（ N = 47）完成了人口统计信息和自我报告问卷，评估对自己和他人的同理心和同情心。然后，参与者完成了六次由微型 EMA 智能手机提供的调查。每次爆发持续 14 天，两次爆发之间间隔 28 天。在每次爆发期间，参与者每天都会收到四次微观 EMA 调查，评估同情心、压力、积极情绪和消极情绪。动态结构方程模型用于检查微 EMA 响应。总体微EMA反应率为83.75%。平均而言，整个学年中日常同情心没有显着变化。然而，在训练期间，医学生的同情心轨迹存在显着的人内差异（ b = 0.027， p < .01）。在同时的时间点，微型 EMA 评估的同情心与更大的幸福感 ( b = 0.142， p < .001) 和更低的压力 ( b = -0.052， p < .05) 相关，但与悲伤无关。在滞后分析中，较高的微观 EMA 评估同情心预示着较高的第二天幸福感（ b = 0.116， p < .01），反之亦然（b = 0.185， p < .01）。 结果表明，使用微型 EMA 来评估医学生的日常同情心水平是可行的。此外，医学生的同情心水平的日常波动存在很大差异，一些学生在整个培训年度中表现出日常同情心大幅增加，而另一些学生则表现出下降。与消极情感相反，积极情感可能与同情心有着特别强烈的联系。进一步检查日常同情心波动的前因和后果可以为有效的干预目标提供信息。