Compassion Fatigue : Symptoms And Treatment

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.

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

The concept of this EBP change project is compassion fatigue as it relates to nurses working in an emergency department (ED) dealing with secondary trauma causing symptoms of compassion fatigue (CF). Compassion is defined as the empathetic awareness of another’s distress, united with a desire to alleviate it (Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, n.d.). Fatigue is the physical or mental depletion that can be the result of strain, overwork, or disease (The Free Medical Dictionary,

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).

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 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,

According to Burkhartd (), “compassion is the ability to imagine oneself in the situation of another” (p.50). Majority of the population has experienced a form of illness or another at some point in life. Previous encounters with particular situations help people to understand exactly what someone is going through. A nurse may come across a patient who is suffering from the same type of cancer that his/her grandfather once did or a child who fractured the same bone he/she did during childhood. Previous experiences don’t have to be lived to fully understand each situation, sometimes repetitious occurrences help. For example, the nurse could also understand a particular circumstance because he/she cared for many others who suffered from the same illness. It helps the nurse remember what if this were my grandfather, who was in the exact situation? What helped the most when that happened to me? These prior experiences bring about feelings of compassion and motivation to care for this patient with the best of his/her abilities. The essential nursing value of altruism also motivates people to help those in need. As a healthcare provider, it’s important to have faith in the human race and have a sincere concern for human beings. Without the concern for mankind there would be no desire to help those in

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

Compassion is a crucial aspect of nursing; it involves seeing the patients as more than just a medical problem. Patients look to nurses as a source of comfort to help them deal with their emotions and understand their medical problems. In Norway, a study was conducted to find the role of compassion in nursing and