A Concept Analysis On Compassion Fatigue

Health providers suffer from an emotional problem called compassion fatigue. Often times compassion fatigue occurs do to the situations encountered by health care professionals and the pain they feel for the patients they care for. One of the essential components of health care is providing care is compassion

Compassion fatigue is widely known in the health care profession. Nurses working overtime and long working days to provide care for the patient and the patient’s families are a continuous stress on a nurse’s emotional and physical well-being especially if the nurse is providing the patient with end of life care as this contributes to both physical and mental work. Vital

The incidence of compassion fatigue is increasing due to the heavy responsibilities placed on nurses and other providers, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Compassion can be a limited resource, our system is rooted in cognitive networks that tire and need refueling (Carey, 2011). Healthcare workers spend more time charting than

. This exploratory study used a cross sectional survey method (Hopper, Craig, Janvir, Wetsel, Reimels, Anderson, Greenvilee & Clemson, 2010, p. 422). Compassion satisfaction and fatigue subscales were measured using the Professional Quality of Life, using ProQOL R-IV instrument (Hopper, et al. 2010, p. 423). Despite study limitations which were small sample size, authors concluded that recognising the signs and symptoms, and identifying best practice interventions and raising awareness, will lead to the development of ongoing support programs for hospital nurses (Hopper, et al., 2010, p. 427).

Compassion fatigue is something I had never thought of before reading obstacle 5 in The Christianity 9 to 5 Bible Study. Although I have never felt the feelings described with this problem at my current job, I can relate with the symptoms at one of my old summer jobs. I spent two summers working for a grain elevator, where I did everything that was asked of me. Being both a summer job, and one that revolved around farming, I knew that the hours were going to vary from week to week. During the heart of the season, there were weeks where, as a summer employee, I was working nearly 80 hours. Spending that much time with the same group of co-worked can become taxing. Especially when the co-workers often were lazy. The company employed 8 people,

In the field of medicine, there is large debate over something known as “compassion fatigue.” Some say it exists while others claim it doesn’t. I believe the reason people debate the idea of compassion fatigue being a reality is due to a misunderstanding in how compassion fatigue manifests.

When one thinks about nursing, caring, empathy, and compassion come to mind. There exists a link, an unbreakable union, for nurses that "compassion fatigue is the cost of caring for others in pain" (Boyle, 2015, p. 49). Compassion fatigue (CF) and its impact on nurses are predominating problems in various Emergency Departments (ED). Nurses perform a number of procedures throughout the day; however, the essential item that they deliver the utmost is themselves (Harris & Quinn-Griffin, 2015). Nurses provide care, succor, kindness, and tenderness to patients, families, other nurses; support to doctors and advanced practitioners, and convey directions to medical technicians, nursing assistants, and other staff every day. Eventually, the nurse can have their internal well of compassion come up empty, leaving them with CF. Simply stated, CF is the inability for nurses to nurture patients due to secondary traumatic stress disorder (Hinderer et al., 2014). This study explores what is compassion fatigue and ways to alleviate it and prevent it from taking away the love of nursing.

Compassion fatigue and burnout are consistently found to be negatively correlated with compassion satisfaction, reinforcing the notion that compassion satisfaction may function protectively (Yoder, 2010). Compassion satisfaction tends to be higher among intensive-care unit nurses than among emergency-department nurses (Yoder, 2010). Compassion fatigue is more prevalent among nurses who work 8-hour shifts than it is among those working 12-hour shifts (Yoder, 2010). All in all, the care-giving component of the nursing profession correlates positively with compassion fatigue (Burtson & Stichler,

Compassion fatigue like any condition comes with its own assortment of signs and symptoms, subsequently making it vital to identify these signs to properly address the condition in the health care personnel suffering it. According to the website “Tend”, co-developed by a clinical psychologist/trauma specialist and a psychotherapist/compassion fatigue specialist, Dr. Partricia Fisher and Francoise Mathieu, the symptoms of compassion fatigue come in three forms, physical behavioral, and psychological. The physical signs of compassion fatigue are exhaustion, feeling tired at the beginning of a shift or “coming back to work after a weekend off and still feeling physically drained.” (Fisher and Mathieu), insomnia, susceptibility to illness, and

As health professionals one of the qualities that we possess is to be empathetic and put ourselves in the place of our patients. In a situation like the one described in the study if the professional is not emotionally prepared to handle this situation where families lose everything, there are homeless and wounded children, we can fall in compassion fatigue. We will stop being empathetic to be a part of the situation and thus lose the perspective of the situation. This condition can occur more frequently in firefighters, police officers, emergency medical technicians and rescuers are those who arrive first to the disaster area. This research aimed to analyze how exposed is the nurse to present the compassion fatigue , the use of both methods

summary, a fair amount of research has been conducted on burnout and compassion fatigue. it is important to understand the individual factors that lead to the development of burnout and compassion fatigue. Another purpose is to understand whether or not the experience of STS is limited only to those who have direct contact with individuals who are experiencing trauma symptoms. Additionally, most literature that discusses coping with compassion fatigue focuses on self-care techniques rather than on an effective style of cognitive appraisal. Common assumptions are that effective coping styles for healthcare workers will generalize to the mental health field. The present study also aims to identify a coping profile indicating whether or not a

Many of the quantitative studies have focused on compassion fatigue occurring in different nursing settings: Oncology, emergency, nephrology, intensive care (Potter, et al., 2010, Hopper et al. 2010 Yoder 2010,). More articles were found related to compassion fatigue in nurses are review of randomized clinically controlled trails, review of literature and systemic reviews. Qualitative studies to understand compassion fatigue are less

Professional quality of life (PROQOL) version 5 by Beth Hudnall Stamm was used to measure these three subscales: compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, and burnout among nurses. It is a five (5) point likert-scale (1 as Never, 2 as Rarely, 3 as Sometimes, 4as Often, and 5 as Very Often) that contains 30 items. The questionnaire was a refinement of the original Compassion Fatigue Self-Test developed by Charles Figley in the late 1980s and the collaboration of Figley and Stamm in 1988. The quality of life of professionals in terms of compassion satisfaction has an alpha scale reliability of .88, compassion Fatigue with 0.81 and burnout with 0.75. PROQOL is the most commonly used measure of the positive and negative effects of working with

Congruent with the compassion fatigue percentage, nurses who experience average level of burnout got the highest composition from the respondents (88.6%). Only 11.4% reported low level whereas none reported a high level of burnout. Since the nurses reflected average scores on burnout, this may reflect the stressors of the helping and nursing experience and the demanding challenges of being the care provider of the patients (Skovholt, 2011). Burnout has been associated with forms of job withdrawal such as absenteeism and even turnover. It is also associated with reduced commitment to the job or organization. Furthermore, burnout has been associated with poor health and increased levels of stress (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2011). Knowing

Every health professional has a legal obligation to patients. Nurses as part of the health care team share an important role in the quality and safe delivery of patient care. They have the major responsibility for the development, implementation and continuous practice of policies and procedures of an organisation. However, nurses should deliver service excellence without compromising their welfare. Compassion fatigue (CF) experienced by nurses possessed major risk factors for poor quality of care. It is important for health care providers and employers to identify early signs of CF. It is also essential that caregivers engage in all level of self-care activities, learn to control their reactions to the pressures around them, be mindful of negative attitudes and reach out for help when needed. This paper will critically discuss the implications of CF on the mental health and well-being of registered nurses in the workforce and the relationship between self-care and resilience in the nursing context.