Compassion fatigue: A Study of critical care nurses in Turkey

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the level of compassion fatigue which experienced by nurses who work in intensive care units and factors that affecting it.In a cross sectional design, critical nurses were surveyed by using questionnaire and compassion fatigue (CF) subscale of the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL R-IV) to measure levels of compassion fatigueat a large National Education and ResearchHospital located in northwestof Turkey. A total of 69 critical care nurses participated in the study, for a response rate of 78%.A series of cross tab analyses examined the relationship between nurses demographics and compassion fatigue (CF) subscale. To analyze the data further, participants were recategorized into 2 groups for CF scores: (1) higher than 17: high risk and (2) lower than 17: low risk.Findings show that critical care nurses were at high risk (52.7%) and low risk (47.3%) for CF. Nurses informed significant differences in compassion fatigue on the basis of age, years of critical care experience, working hours (weekly).

Nurses Compassion Fatigue during the Pilgrim (Al-Hajj) Season

“…The increasing length of experience resulted in a lower risk of compassion fatigue. These findings parallel previous studies [6, 12, 25, 38]. Another related finding suggests that novice and advanced beginner nurses are more likely to experience lower levels of CS and a higher risk of BO than competent, proficient, and expert nurses.…”

“…In this study, nurses with a higher level of education (post-BSN education) were most likely to experience compassion fatigue compared with nurses holding an Associate Degree, Diploma, and BSN, while Dikman et al [12] reported that nurses with Associate Degrees had a higher risk of compassion fatigue than other educated groups. Wu et al [6] also reported that more educated nurses were found to experience higher levels of CS.…”

“…BO is characterized by emotional exhaustion, frustration, anger, and depression, and secondary traumatic stress results in negative feelings operated by fear and work-related trauma [11]. Fatigue due to secondary traumatic stress is evidenced by physical, emotional, social, and spiritual exhaustion, along with a loss of coping ability [12, 13].…”

Examination of the relationship between compassion fatigue and life satisfaction in midwives, Kars province, Turkey

“…Compassion fatigue is the emotional, biological, and physiological exhaustion due to being continuously exposed to others' suffering for a long time and is characterized by the gradual decrease in compassion over time. Healthcare professionals constitute a high-risk group in terms of compassion fatigue 22 . Midwifery plays a role in processes including pre-labor, labor, and post-labor, and neonatal period.…”

“…Compassion fatigue scale 'The Compassion Fatigue Scale', which was developed by Pommier (2010) and with which validity and reliability studies were conducted in Turkish by Akdeniz and Deniz 17 , has 24 items and is a 5-point Likert-type scale (1=Never, 2=Rarely, 3=Sometimes, 4=Often, 5=Always). The scale consists of six subscales as kindness (items: 6, 8, 16, 24), indifference (2,12,14,18), common humanity (11,15,17,20), disengagement (3,5,10,22), mindfulness (4,9,13,21), and separation (1,7,19,23). After this calculation, the mean total score was obtained; as the total score increases, the compassion level also increases.…”