and 46 years (Md = 11 years). The interviews lasted from 41 to 60 min (M = 48 min) and were recorded individual interviews with open-ended questions (Mishler, 1986). The participants were asked to narrate about their lived experience of encounters with patients with mental illness in forensic inpatient care. The main questions included, “Can you tell me about an encounter with a patient that evoked negative feelings?” and “Can you tell me about an encounter with a patient that evoked positive feelings?” Further questions included, “How did you feel?” “Can you tell me more?” and “Has that happened before?” In our first analysis (Hammarström et al., 2019), the questions provided an opportunity to understand the range of feelings and vulnerability nurses experienced when encountering their patients. We found that the nurses tried to empathize with patients' experiences and displayed competence in assessing patients' expressions. Their strategy fostered self-reflection, situational assessment and compassion for patients. The identification of the narratives' potential of providing information about development of compassion argued for a secondary analysis. The first author transcribed the interviews verbatim. The participants (10 men and 3 women) consisted of 5 registered nurses and 8 assistant nurses. In the presentation of the results, all staff were referred to as “nurse” to conceal identities. Ethics Interviewees were informed about the study verbally and in writing. All interviewees provided written consent, which was stored by the first author. Partaking was voluntary, and confidentiality was guaranteed. The data used during the secondary supplementary analysis did not contain any identifying details about the participants. All participants were provided with the first author's and supervisors' contact information. Ethical approval was granted by the regional ethical review board (no. 2018/157-31) and was conducted per the Declaration of Helsinki (WMA, 2008). Permission to conduct the study was granted by the head of the clinic. Analysis Understanding of the text was gained through a systematic analysis in the Gadamerian hermeneutic tradition and went through four steps according to Fleming et al. (2003). During the first step, the text was read as a whole. Based on preunderstandings of earlier conceptualizations of compassion (Halifax, 2014; Kanov et al., 2004; Sinclair et al., 2018) and other research findings (including findings from our first study), the first author articulated the fundamental meaning of nurses' experiences of compassion as a response to patients' suffering. The fundamental meaning was later reflected upon by all the authors. In the next step, the fundamental meaning (nurses' response to patients' suffering) guided the identification of sentences and content in the text that could be related to or convey meaning about nurses' response to patients' suffering. Each sentence was examined to expose the meaning of understanding; themes and subthemes were formed. In the third step, a hermeneutic movement was conducted. Each sentence or setting was related to the text as a whole, thus gaining an expanded understanding of the whole text. The hermeneutic circle was essential to gaining an understanding; each sentence and its subthemes and themes were related to the initial fundamental meaning of the text as a whole which, then, shed further light on the understanding of the text as a whole. The fourth and final step included finding passages that gave further insight into the phenomenon and clarified the mutual understanding between researchers and participants. The entire process was repeated numerous times until the authors settled upon a shared understanding, at which point the circle was closed. L. Hammarström, et al. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing 34 (2020) 435–441 436 Results The results are presented in one main theme: being compassionate in forensic psychiatry—an emotional journey, which entailed three themes—recognizing suffering and need for support; responding to patients suffering; reacting to one's own vulnerability—and subsequent subthemes (see Table 1). Main theme: being compassionate in forensic psychiatry—an emotional journey The nurses' narratives described an emotional journey and an inner negotiation. The fundamental meaning of experiences revealed the nurses' interpretations and responses to patients' suffering and their own vulnerabilities, where compassion could be seen as an answer to suffering. Caring for patients in forensic psychiatry meant meeting individuals who committed serious crimes and may have been suffering from severe mental illness for long periods of time. A nurse's ability to interpret the pleas of their patients was crucial for developing compassion. In patient encounters where nurses perceived an appeal for help, the nurses experienced compassion for the patient. Encounters that awoke negative feelings of dislike or uncertainty were those that involved struggling with deciphering the patients suffering. However, letting suffering make an impression made it easier to develop compassion. Despite how expressions of suffering made an impression and affected compassion, it was changeable over time. The emotional journey fluctuated: nurses either protected themselves from their own