Background: Job stress and burnout are common among healthcare professionals, and nurses in particular. In addition to the heavy workload and lack of recourses, nurses are also confronted with emotionally intense situations associated with illness and suffering, which require empathic abilities. Although empathy is one of the core values in nursing, if not properly balanced it can also have detrimental consequences, such as compassion fatigue. Self-compassion, on the other hand, has been shown to be a protective factor for a wide range of well-being indicators and has been associated with compassion for others.Objectives: The main goal of this study was to explore how empathy and selfcompassion related to professional quality of life (compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue and burnout). In addition, we wanted to test whether self-compassion may be a protective factor for the impact of empathy on compassion fatigue.Methods and Participants: Using a cross-sectional design, 280 registered nurses from public hospitals in Portugal's north and center region were surveyed. Professional quality of life (Professional Quality Of Life), empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index) and self-compassion (Self-compassion Scale) were measured using validated self-report measures.Results: Correlations and regression analyses showed that empathy and self-compassion predicted the three aspects of professional quality of life. Empathic concern was positively associated with compassion satisfaction as well as with compassion fatigue.Mediation models suggested that the negative components of self-compassion explain some of these effects, and self-kindness and common humanity were significant moderators. The same results were found for the association between personal distress and compassion fatigue. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 3 Conclusions: High levels of affective empathy may be a risk factor for compassion fatigue, whereas self-compassion might be protective. Teaching self-compassion and self-care skills may be an important feature in interventions that aim to reduce burnout and compassion fatigue.Keywords: empathy; compassion fatigue; nurses; professional quality of life; selfcompassion . 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 4 Introduction Empathy is a central aspect of healthcare, and has been associated with positive outcomes not only for the patient (e.g., Rakel et al., 2011;Hojat, Louis, & Markham, 2011;Blatt, LeLacheur, Galinsky, Simmens, & Greenberg, 2010) but also for the healthcare professional (Thomas et al., 2007; Shanafel et al., 2005).However, given the constant exposure to highly d...

Objetivo: o presente trabalho teve por objetivo descrever a utilização e os resultados obtidos com o instrumento Medical Outcomes Study Short Form -36 item (SF-36) para avaliação de qualidade de vida de pessoas em situação de uso, abuso ou dependência de substâncias psicoativas (SPA). Método: realizou-se um levantamento bibliográfico em artigos e revistas científicas, dissertações e monografias. Resultados: os estudos mostram que o uso de substâncias psicoativas traz prejuízos para saúde e qualidade de vida das pessoas. Conclusão: observa-se que o instrumento SF-36 se mostra válido e confiável para a avaliação da qualidade de vida entre consumidores de SPA e possui em seus domínios algumas dimensões que são bastante sensíveis a avaliação de aspectos da qualidade de vida desta população.