Who is Responsible for Compassion Satisfaction? Shifting Ethical Responsibility for Compassion Fatigue from the Individual to the Ecological

Police Resilience as a Multilevel Balance: Needs and Resources for Victim Support Officers

“…As for compassion fatigue, it has also been studied primarily among healthcare, emergencies, and other essential workers. Xie et al (2021, p. 2) defined it as “emotional, physical and psychological exhaustion due to chronic work-related stress exposure among healthcare providers,” whereas Edwards and Goussios (2021, p. 247) understood it as “a condition characterised by the gradual erosion of compassion over time that culminates with empathic disengagement.” Its relation to healthcare, social services, and other similar occupations have allowed experts to understand compassion fatigue as a cost for caring, or as the emotional cost paid for the reaction to stress and for the exhaustion after caring for or helping traumatized people (Figley, 1995; Pérez-García et al, 2021). Empathy and compassion are thus two central dimensions of this concept, and as such they make the interaction between officer and victim a necessary condition.…”

“…Besides the aforementioned main consequences, among compassion fatigue’s most frequently analyzed effects we may find physical and psychological exhaustion, feelings of disconnectedness and inefficacy, fatigue, anxiety, irritability, job dissatisfaction, lack of boundaries between work and personal life, reduction of productivity, and even willingness to quit (Carlson-Johnson et al, 2020; Edwards & Goussios, 2021; Eng et al, 2021; Pérez-García et al, 2021; Voth Schrag et al, 2022). Similar to burnout and resilience, compassion fatigue can be understood and studied from an individual perspective, but also from the point of view of organizational, ecological, or even social factors and responsibilities (Edwards & Goussios, 2021).…”

“…Besides the aforementioned main consequences, among compassion fatigue’s most frequently analyzed effects we may find physical and psychological exhaustion, feelings of disconnectedness and inefficacy, fatigue, anxiety, irritability, job dissatisfaction, lack of boundaries between work and personal life, reduction of productivity, and even willingness to quit (Carlson-Johnson et al, 2020; Edwards & Goussios, 2021; Eng et al, 2021; Pérez-García et al, 2021; Voth Schrag et al, 2022). Similar to burnout and resilience, compassion fatigue can be understood and studied from an individual perspective, but also from the point of view of organizational, ecological, or even social factors and responsibilities (Edwards & Goussios, 2021). As such, a combination of individual, interpersonal, and organizational factors may provide a series of mediating factors such as those identified by Figley (2002), among which we may highlight empathetic ability and response, exposition to other people’s traumas, compassion-led stress, degree of satisfaction with the tasks, boundaries with the tasks and needs and hand, repeated exposition to the trauma and its remembrance, and changes in the worker’s personal or professional life.…”

Staying in bounds: A framework for setting workplace boundaries to promote physician wellness

“…Individual strategies can occur in tandem with organizational level changes and may be implemented more quickly to mitigate some aspects of burnout. 1,2,[7][8][9] Advice to clinicians on addressing burnout often focuses on the need to do more, often emphasizing self-care activities outside of work, such as exercise, quality family time, and mindfulness. 8 This expectation can create more stress by implying that nonwork time should be dedicated to activities to enhance the capacity to manage stressors in the workplace.…”

Compassion, emotions and cognition: Implications for nursing education

“…Nevertheless, the concept of compassion is still central to nursing, 1 Reports and research focussing on the consequences of lack of care and malpractice in modern healthcare have led to a ‘compassion crisis’ narrative, in which malpractice is understood as healthcare personnel’s lack of compassion, with severe consequences for patients., 2 (p. 421) Many studies concern ‘compassion fatigue’, focussing on the cost of caring and distress for those in occupations exposed to suffering that require workers to be compassionate as part of their work. 3 Lately, light has been shed on the antithesis of compassion fatigue: the concept of ‘compassion satisfaction’. Sacco and Copel 4 define it as the ‘pleasure that derives from being able to help’.…”