Objectives Work stress is common in healthcare and reliably predicts negative outcomes, including burnout and lower quality of life (QOL). However, few studies have investigated factors that might attenuate the impact of stress on these negative outcomes. We investigated whether the tendency to be kind to the self during times of difficulty-self-compassion-might buffer the effect of work stress on outcomes. Methods Registered nurses (n = 801), physicians (n = 516), and medical students (n = 383) were recruited using convenience sampling in New Zealand. Following consent, participants (N = 1700) completed a survey including the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, Satisfaction with Life Scale, and Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form. Results Across groups, greater work stress consistently predicted greater burnout and lower QOL, while greater self-compassion predicted lower burnout and better QOL. Self-compassion moderated the relationship between stress and burnout in nurses (albeit in the opposite direction to what had been predicted), but not in doctors or medical students. Conclusions While self-compassion predicted better outcomes (and may thus represent a target to enhance wellbeing), it strengthened the association between stress and burnout in nurses. How self-compassion impacts the experience of stress and its correlates and why it does so differently in different groups of professionals remains unclear.
Although compassion in healthcare differs in important ways from compassion in everyday life, it provides a key, applied microcosm in which the science of compassion can be applied. Compassion is among the most important virtues in medicine, expected from medical professionals and anticipated by patients. Yet, despite evidence of its centrality to effective clinical care, research has focused on compassion fatigue or barriers to compassion and neglected to study the fact that most healthcare professionals maintain compassion for their patients. In contributing to this understudied area, the present report provides an exploratory investigation into how healthcare professionals report trying to maintain compassion. In the study, 151 professionals were asked questions about how they maintained compassion for their patients. Text responses were coded, with a complex mixture of internal vs. external, self vs. patient, and immediate vs. general strategies being reported. Exploratory analyses revealed reliable individual differences in the tendency to report strategies of particular types but no consistent age-related differences between older and younger practitioners emerged. Overall, these data suggest that while a range of compassion-maintaining strategies were reported, strategies were typically concentrated in particular areas and most professionals seek to maintain care using internal strategies. A preliminary typology of compassion maintaining strategies is proposed, study limitations and future directions are discussed, and implications for the study of how compassion is maintained are considered.
Background
Patients undergoing chemotherapy experience a range of aversive symptoms. These symptoms vary across individuals and at least some of this variation can be predicted by psychological factors, such as distress. However, while psychological distress predicts some of the symptoms, it is limited in important ways.
Purpose
To (a) assess the viability of disgust—a discrete emotion that specifically evolved for health-related reasons—as a predictor of chemotherapy-related symptoms (particularly, taste- and smell-related changes) and (b) compare the predictive utility of disgust sensitivity and propensity against the most commonly used affective predictor, that is, psychological distress.
Methods
Patients with cancer (N = 63) about to initiate chemotherapy were recruited in a prospective observational study. Psychosocial predictor variables were assessed at baseline, and outcomes (i.e., physical symptoms, body mass index [BMI], and food-based sensory-processing changes) were assessed at both baseline and 6 week follow-up.
Results
Psychological distress did not predict any of the outcomes. Both disgust sensitivity (β = .53, p = .003) and propensity (β = −.56, p = .002) predicted greater food-based sensory-processing changes, while disgust sensitivity marginally predicted greater chemotherapy-related physical symptoms (β = .34, p = .060); neither of these two forms of disgust predicted BMI.
Conclusions
The study provides first evidence showing (a) associations between trait disgust and food sensory-processing changes that arise during chemotherapy and (b) disgust as being a more useful predictor of food- and digestion-related symptoms than psychological distress. In doing so, it opens new doors for better care to be provided to patients undergoing chemotherapy.
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