Compassion Fatigue In Nursing. Hunter M. Ledbetter. Gardner-Webb

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

According to Coetzee and Hester (2010) compassion fatigue was adopted as a synonym for secondary traumatic stress disorder. The aim of their 2010 concept analysis of the topic was to further define compassion fatigue as it applies to the nursing practice. They describe the process of compassion fatigue from just simply discomfort to compassion stress and finally fatigue. (p.1) Their analysis describes how damaging compassion fatigue can be on a nurse’s ability to provide compassionate care. The information is vital to the field of nursing and the outcomes of our patients. Specifically, it plays an important role in my personal practice. It’s a nurse responsibility to provide compassion care for the ill. In the process nurses are exposed daily to their patient’s pain trauma, and their struggles. This and other factors such as unsafe work conditions can take a toll on nurses and their functionality.

A person’s current life’s circumstances, history, coping style and personality type all determine how compassion fatigue will impact them. If a person is encountering any other stress outside work, then that person is highly likely to experience compassion fatigue, on the other hand a person who is not experiencing any outside stressors may not arrive at that final stage in the process of CF. Study have shown that a person’s history affects the way in which he/she is affected by traumatic events. Psychologies implemented a theory in which variables, measure exposure to stressful events; the survey inquired about a number of negative life events (e.g., getting divorced, having problems at work) that could have happened

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

Most nurses and health care professionals enter the medical realm to make their patients well and prolong the length of their life. In contrast, hospice nurses and their interdisciplinary teams aim to simply improve the quality of the remainder of their patients’ lives. The finite nature of hospice care means that hospice nurses specifically are exposed to a continuous cycle of loss without the opportunity to grieve appropriately. In addition, the empathy and compassion integral to nursing care can become overly pronounced in hospice nurses, making them especially at-risk of becoming too attached to their patients. These factors often result in physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion, a state known as compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue (CF) affects not only the nurse’s quality of life, but also his or her job satisfaction and work ethic. This paper provides an overview and history of hospice care, discusses risk factors for CF, and examines its effect on nurses. It concludes with recommendations for appropriate ways to cope with CF and CF’s implications for the future of hospice care.

Compassion fatigue and burnout is a burgeoning area of interest primarily due to its adverse effects on a nurses’ health, productivity, and patient care. Despite the literature on nursing burnout and compassion fatigue, the lived experiences of nurses have virtually been ignored. According to Thomas & Wilson (2004), compassion fatigue is the stress, strain, and weariness of caring for others who are suffering from a medical illness or psychological problem” (p. 82). In contrast, burnout is a accumulation of stress due to the repetitive demands of daily life, a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion caused by a depletion of the ability to cope with one’s environment, particularty the work environment (Maslach, 1982). Burnout more often point to environment stressors, whereas definitions of compassion fatigue address the relational nature of the condition.Increasing and unresolved stress leads to compassion fatigue, it is the accumulation of fatigue that leads to a state of exhaustion and

Figley (2002a) defined “Compassion Fatigue” as a sense of helplessness and confusion around an emotional investment in helping those who are suffering. Compassion Fatigue has been linked to 10 variables. Starting variable begins with Empathic Ability, the ability to notice the pain of others. Following with Empathic Concern, noticing the pain of others and wanting to help the other person. Thirdly is Exposure to the client, the more time face to face with a consumer. Consecutively follows Empathic Response – taking the steps and making an effort to help reduce or alleviate the suffering of the consumer through understanding. Afterward becomes Compassion Stress, the stress one feels from the additional empathy towards another. Sixth is

On the contrary, fewer years of experience has been determined to increase vulnerability to compassion fatigue (Sprang et al., 2007). Novice nurses and trainees are especially prone to compassion fatigue due to a lack of experience and unrealistic expectations. As Corey (2007) pointed out, beginner nurses are often faced with increased feelings of nervousness and stress due to initial job placements, and with disappointment when the positions do not meet their perceived notions of what they thought their career would be like. Many nurses must deal with the uncertainty of starting their careers and become aware of the organizational constraints set forth by their employers (Killian, 2008). Vredenburgh et al. (2009) concluded that younger and

Although nursing is a varied profession, compassion fatigue is experienced across all specialties and is a relatively new acknowledgement of symptoms. “Compassion fatigue is the term used to describe a combination of burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Burnout is composed of three constructs: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and diminishing ones accomplishments” Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, (2001). On the contrary and not thoroughly studied is compassion satisfaction. “While CF describes some of the occupational hazards of nursing, compassion satisfaction (CS) encompasses the pleasure of gratitude that develops from caregiving for patients” (Simon, Pryce, Roff & Klemmack 2005). This term of compassion satisfaction is interchangeable

Finally the third hypothesis was that work drain and history of traumas would have a supportive relationship with compassion fatigue and emotional self-awareness would have a negative relationship with compassion fatigue. The third hypothesis is looking at feeling drained at work and a person’s own personal history of trauma would positively correlate with compassion fatigue and that if a person had insight into their own emotional state that person would score lower on compassion fatigue. The therapists sense of powerlessness (.32), work drain (.32), emotional self-awareness (-.24), and personal trauma history(.23) greatly impacted Compassion Fatigue.

Compassion fatigue is a problem in caregiving professions, including nursing, and even more specifically critical care nursing. The effects can be detrimental to the nurse and to the care provided to patients. While attempting to enhance a patient’s quality of life, nurses may not even realize that their own quality of life may be at stake. (pg 17).

Nurses often are labeled as caregivers. They start their careers with an overflowing jug of compassion; however, each time they put their own emotions or problems aside to comfort others, they pour a glass out of the jug and give it away. Often, nurses’ jugs run on empty. Metaphorically speaking, this scenario represents compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue plagues all specialties in primary and acute care, and it can lead to serious ailments such as depression, anxiety, burn out, and even self medicating with drugs (Shepard, 2013).

In response, Conrad and Guenther (2006) have differentiated compassion fatigue from burnout. According to Conrad and Guenther (2006), both burnout and compassion fatigue share symptoms such as depression, emotional exhaustion, and depersonalization. However, burnout is developed gradually over a long period of time, as a result of heavy caseloads and exhaustion at work. In contrast, compassion fatigue is caused by the clinician’s exposure to the trauma experiences of their clients. Moreover, unlike burnout, compassion fatigue does not have to be a gradual process. A clinician could develop compassion fatigue through exposure to a single client’s trauma experiences (Conrad & Guenther,

With compassionate care playing a role in improving patient outcomes, the nurse’s delivering such care are found to experience increased confidence and job satisfaction as a result (van den Pol-Grevelink, A., Jukema, JS. and Smits CH., cited in Health Innovation Network, 2016). Furthermore, as compassion increases patient satisfaction, a resulting reduction in repeat service use is evidenced, thus reducing overall costs of care (Health Innovation Network,