Professional Compassion Fatigue
Compassion Fatigue
Abstract
Emerging evidence describes some of the heavy tolls that health professionals experience as they deal with loss of patients, traumatic situations, supporting families and the overall stress that comes with the nursing profession as a whole. Each patient and family has particular needs (physical, psychological, social and spiritual) and are deserving of expert care, and it is this intensity of need that places nurses at risk of professional compassion fatigue (Melvin, 2012). Presented in this writing is the definition of compassion fatigue, related concepts to compassion fatigue, description of a model nurse who has compassion, description of a nurse who has compassion fatigue, nursing implications of compassion fatigue and personal aims after reviewing compassion fatigue.
The terms professional compassion fatigue, burnout, and accumulated loss phenomenon have all been used to refer to the cumulative physical and emotional effects of providing care over extended periods of time. These include anxiety, intrusive thoughts, apathy, and depression. A trend seems to have emerged where nurses seem to have lost their “ability to nurture” (Jenkins & Warren, 2012). Those who have experienced compassion fatigue describe it as being …show more content…
Compassion fatigue can also manifest from nurses absorbing and internalizing the emotions of clients and sometimes co-workers. Nurses collect bits and pieces of their patients’ trauma by exposure to their lives. Many professionals carry these bits and pieces as images in their minds and intense feelings that affect them physically and emotionally at the end of their working day. Those who are strongly empathetic may be most at risk for compassion fatigue. Such experiences frequently result in health professionals leaving the
Abstract
Emerging evidence describes some of the heavy tolls that health professionals experience as they deal with loss of patients, traumatic situations, supporting families and the overall stress that comes with the nursing profession as a whole. Each patient and family has particular needs (physical, psychological, social and spiritual) and are deserving of expert care, and it is this intensity of need that places nurses at risk of professional compassion fatigue (Melvin, 2012). Presented in this writing is the definition of compassion fatigue, related concepts to compassion fatigue, description of a model nurse who has compassion, description of a nurse who has compassion fatigue, nursing implications of compassion fatigue and personal aims after reviewing compassion fatigue.
The terms professional compassion fatigue, burnout, and accumulated loss phenomenon have all been used to refer to the cumulative physical and emotional effects of providing care over extended periods of time. These include anxiety, intrusive thoughts, apathy, and depression. A trend seems to have emerged where nurses seem to have lost their “ability to nurture” (Jenkins & Warren, 2012). Those who have experienced compassion fatigue describe it as being …show more content…
Compassion fatigue can also manifest from nurses absorbing and internalizing the emotions of clients and sometimes co-workers. Nurses collect bits and pieces of their patients’ trauma by exposure to their lives. Many professionals carry these bits and pieces as images in their minds and intense feelings that affect them physically and emotionally at the end of their working day. Those who are strongly empathetic may be most at risk for compassion fatigue. Such experiences frequently result in health professionals leaving the