What is known on the subject?• Compassion fatigue is the result of the unique stressors inherent in caregiving work, leading to a loss of compassion in clinical practice that may result in negative outcomes for mental healthcare consumers.• Compassion fatigue has clear emotional and physical costs and significant impacts on staff recruitment and retention.
What the paper adds to existing knowledge?• This review is the first to evaluate the quantitative literature on compassion fatigue in mental health nurses.• Research on compassion fatigue in mental health nurses does not accurately account for the unique care relationship between nurse and consumer.• Competency-based education, strong mental health nurse leadership, positive organizational cultures, clinical supervision and reflection alongside individual self-care strategies may mitigate compassion fatigue.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.