Stress in the Emergency Department

Human caring is what sets nursing apart from other professions. As Watson (1998) stated, “care and love are the most universal, the most tremendous and the most mysterious of cosmic forces: they comprise the primal universal psychic energy. Caring is the essence of nursing and the most central and unifying focus for nursing practice” (p. 32-33). It is important to establish a good nurse-patient relationship in order to create a healing environment that would meet patient’s needs on all levels including physical, mental/emotional and spiritual, promote recovery, maintain health, and create positive outcomes. Jean Watson emphasized the importance of human

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

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

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

This paper will describe the warning signs for five concepts of compassion fatigue, the background and the cause of this problem, the physical,

For example, my scoring was great on the compassion satisfaction scale. However, in my opinion, the burnout scale and the compassion fatigue scales were borderline in regards to the statics presented by Hudnall (2005). Conversely, on the other hand, in order to mitigate the effects of vicarious trauma, there are several strategies that can be used such as the intervention through training, intervention with the organization, and intervention with the individual strategies. The intervention through training strategy is an ongoing intervention that can increase focus on the therapeutic detachment and moderating idealism (James and Gilliland, 2013). The intervention with the organization would be a process in which to better the agency all together. Whereas the intervention with the individual would be for the worker to participate in support groups or even to take some time off from work. In turns of applying these strategies will help reduce the levels of burnout within human service

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

Nurses that listen to their patients, not only notice that they are physically hurt, but they can also notice their emotional wounds. The empathy of knowing that the patient is emotionally hurt is part of the spirituality connection. Therefore, they might need comfort. O’Brien (2001) states that, “ No other profession provides the opportunity to touch and be touched by the human spirit as does the practice of nursing. It is this intimacy that calls us to reverence: reverence for God as our creator and Lord…” (pg.110). Nurses have the privilege to connect with people in ways that no other profession may be able to provide. Since nurses are patients advocate, our duty is to connect them with their spiritual beliefs and