Prevalence of Compassion Satisfaction and Compassion Fatigue Amongst Acute Behavioral Health Nurses

It is common knowledge that healthcare professionals endure a great deal of stress when caring for their patients. Everyday nurses encounter overwhelming demands from their patients. They are overworked and sometimes feel unappreciated causing them to experience burnout. Health care providers who experience burnout begin to feel gradually overwhelmed by the patient’s demands, high amount of work load and/ or feeling vulnerable due a non-supportive work environment and management. In addition, the individual may experience something even more debilitating such as Compassion fatigue (CF). The symptoms of CF are similar to burnout, however CF occurs in a sudden and acute onset instead of gradual. Healthcare providers such as nurses are vulnerable to CF. Psychiatric Mental Health nurses encounter and care for patients who are victims of trauma and/ or caring for individuals with complex mental health needs. It takes a great deal of compassion, empathy and emotional investment in caring for patients who are suffering and are in distress. However, nurses are merely human and have limits in being genuinely compassionate and empathetic when caring for their patients. These nurses are likely to become overwhelmed, provide ineffective care and lose their ability to nurture patients putting them at risk of developing CF. There are many studies on the prevalence of CF within various specialties in nursing such as critical care and emergency care; However, there have not been any studies done on the prevalence of CF among psychiatric mental health in the acute care setting.