Compassion Fatigue Case Study

Compassion fatigue is the emotional residue from the exposure of hearing trauma stories over and over until your heart and head is full until the caller/client’s trauma becomes your experience too. You cannot hear story after story and remain unaffected. As your callers/clients experience a daily repetition of trauma, so will you .Being a witness to pain, loss, fear, terror or injustice that the caller/client is living through and has to endure will eventually effect all of us.

Some social workers that are experiencing compassion fatigue may carry their symptoms over to their clients and let it affect their job competency. This can consequently affect their ethical standing within the profession.

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

Burnout is defined as an internal psychological experience that involves feelings, attitudes, motives and expectations. Burnout means the energy of an individual has been consumed by helping others. Energy crisis occurs when the psychic demand exceeds the supply. Burnout is often experienced with a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion caused by a long-term involvement within an emotionally demanding situation. Burnout is often accompanied by physical depletion, feelings of helplessness, disillusionment, negative self-concept and negative attitudes toward employment, people and life in itself. Burnout represents a breaking point where it’s hard for an individual to cope with the environment surrounding them. Compassion fatigue is often caused by a work related stress and it is also an increase of loss in compassion over a period of time. Compassion fatigue can share similar

Working in the helping field has its many joys and privileges. Seeing a child, whose self esteem is at the bottom, light up when he/she accomplishes a new task, see the growth an alcohol and drug addict has made in treatment, or to see the family, that when they entered the door of your office, was on the verge of separation, but now are communicating and working out their own needs with little assistance from you, their therapist, is some of the most rewarding moments one can experience. However, to believe that life is all about these positive moments and that the battles you join in with others to overcome will not have an impact on you

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

Within literature, Compassion has been described in many ways though very few descriptions have agreed on how it is best identified (Volpintesta 2011). Crowther et al (2013) describe compassion as a deep emotion that is felt by the individual practitioner allowing them to understand what the patient may be experiencing. Nussbaum (2003) argues that compassion goes beyond just understanding and identifying that emotion, it requires the practitioner to produce a response to the feeling or emotion in order to improve the situation. Dewar (2011) points out that compassion is not only about the recognition of the patients suffering but includes small

Healthcare providers are at increased risk for compassion fatigue (CF), which has also been called secondary traumatic stress, second hand shock syndrome, secondary stress reaction, and vicarious trauma (ABA, 2011). Compassion fatigue begins to become an issue when caregivers give too much of themselves to others and neglect to provide for their own needs. Neglecting one’s personal needs can be harmful, leading to destructive behaviors and patterns, such as over indulgence and increased sick calls. Over time the provider has a decreased ability to show compassion. This paper will discuss and describe compassion fatigue, warning signs of compassion fatigue, and discuss recovery options for those suffering from compassion fatigue.

Longitudinal data was collected to determine the efficacy of resilience program at three and six month intervals (Potter et al., 2013). The longitudinal data in the study reported statistically significant results of decreased overall compassion fatigue through implementation of a compassion fatigue intervention program (Potter et al., 2013). A pilot study of a compassion fatigue resiliency program with thirteen oncology nurses showed promising results. “The program interventions were

The purpose of conducting a concept analysis is to divide the components of a concept into separate individual parts for evaluation and clarification. Analysis of the internal structure, defining aspects, characteristics and interrelationships to the other components can be achieved by conducting a concept analysis. The basic purpose is a process to discover the similarities and differences between concepts (Walker & Avant, 2005). The intent of the concept analysis on the subject of compassion fatigue is to evaluate compassion fatigue in nursing and to determine the current conceptual use in efforts to clarify the relevance to nurses. The aim is to identify how the concept is currently utilized and how it could potentially be utilized in the future.

When choosing to pursue a career in the health care field, most enter the workplace with the desire to help and provide care for patients who are critically ill (Lombardo & Eyre, 2011). Far too often, these health professionals who were once sympathetic and caring become victims of compassion fatigue (Lombardo & Eyre, 2011). As a working health professional it is ones duty to compassionately care for the sick, wounded and traumatized patients, which involves being exposed daily to the patient’s pain, suffering and trauma (Coetzee & Klopper, 2010). Experiencing this type of trauma first hand is an un-recognized side effect of being a health care professional (Briscoe, 2014). It is easy to get wrapped up in patients, their

Compassion fatigue is a huge reality and according to Potter et al. (2013), long-term effects of compassion fatigue have negative impact on the health, well-being and performance of nurses involved. Jean Watson’s theory of caring said, true healing cannot be realized without caring therefore, compassion fatigue is a problem that does not only affect nurses, but goes a notch higher by also affecting the quality of care offered by compassion fatigue victims. Boyle (2011) observed that there is need for nurses to be compassionate and caring especially when providing care to patients, families or relatives. Slatten et al. (2011) noted that compassion fatigue is an occupational hazard among nurses involved (that is, professionals involved in helping others). Compassion fatigue is therefore, a significant problem affecting professional practice in nursing because Rosa (2014) stated that, being a successful caregiver requires a nurse to be in a position to find the meaning in what they do, remain committed and immersed in order to gain a sense of purpose. However, compassion fatigue stands as a barrier to realization of sense of purpose among

Compassion represents an “acknowledgement of another’s suffering and is accompanied by the expression of a desire to ease or end that suffering.” (Van der Cingal, 2009, p. 124) This is a fundamental characteristic usually found in health care workers and nurses especially. In one twelve hour shift, a nurse’s job can change from taking vitals and administering medications to performing life saving measures

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

I have never submitted a summer projects application and would love to sit down and "pick your brain." I am thinking about submit a summer project on building a curriculum for GCC occupational programs on compassion and fatigue. The goal is to prepare students for the demands of highly stressful careers offered at GCC (e.g., Behavioral Health Sciences, Nursing, Emergency Medical Technician, Law Enforcement Operations, Developmental Disabilities Specialist, and Fire Science). The compassion and fatigue curriculum would include teaching students how to building resiliency against secondary & post-traumatic stress and learn the necessary skills to prevent burnout.