Introduction
Compassion fatigue (CF) is a concept that describes the physical and emotional exhaustion that affects helping caregivers such as nurses over time. It is directly associated with gradual desensitization to patient’s needs, increased medical errors, decreased quality of care, high anxiety and depression rates, and high-stress levels. Compassion Fatigue in the Long-term care
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Existing evidence suggests numerous strategies to address CF among nurses working with patients who require long-term care such as CF educational programs to increase awareness about CF, providing supportive work environments, organizational support, training, and resiliency programs among others. The purpose of this annotated bibliography is to identify techniques, predictors, and interventions to decrease CF resulting in efficient and safe care.Compassion Fatigue in the Long-term care setting.
Research Question: Do CF education programs and supportive work environments’ (flexible work schedules, adequate staffing and time-offs, and rotational-assignments) decrease CF among nurses working in long term care settings?
Annotated Bibliography- Compassion Fatigue in the Long-Term Care Setting
Kolthoff, K. L., & Hickman, S. E. (2017). CF among nurses working with older adults. Geriatric Nursing, 38(2), 106-109.
Kolthoff & Hickman (2017) emphasize the need to build a highly supportive environment that prevents compassion fatigue (CF) and professional burnout but sustains compassion satisfaction (CS). Compassion Fatigue in the Long-term care setting.Such an environment can be built through organizational philosophies, policies, and procedures that support staff to balance personal needs and work such as rotational assignments, time offs, flexible schedules, and education benefits. Organizations can also develop and implement trauma-informed initiatives and CF resiliency programs to increase providers’ knowledge on the mental, physical, and emotional effects of CF. Nurse leaders should also conduct periodic CF screening and rescreening for early identification and intervention of CF. Kolthoff & Hickman (2017) recommend the Professional Quality of Life 5 Scale (PQLS) scale as an appropriate tool to conduct such assessments whose outcomes can be used to adjust and re-evaluate self-care plans.Compassion Fatigue in the Long-term care setting.
Ruiz-Fernández, M. D., Pérez-García, E., & Ortega-Galán, Á. M. (2020). Quality of Life in Nursing Professionals: Burnout, Fatigue, and Compassion Satisfaction. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(4), 1253.
The study by Ruiz-Fernández, Pérez-García & Ortega-Galán (2020) reveals specific work-related and socio-demographic characteristics associated with CF and CS. The most significant correlation is that of age and CF where older nurses or more experienced nurses have higher CF and lower CS levels. In comparison, younger nurses or nurses who are less experienced have low CF and higher CS levels.Compassion Fatigue in the Long-term care setting. Although interventions to address CF should focus on all nurses, older nurses can benefit more from interventions that aim at enhancing empathy, self-compassion, and compassion skills such as compassion programs and mindfulness. These programs reduce the symptoms of depersonalization, depression, and emotional burnout and increase high self-care levels, skills for emotional regulation, and enhance effective communication skills.Compassion Fatigue in the Long-term care setting.
Wu, S., Singh-Carlson, S., Odell, A., Reynolds, G., & Su, Y. (2016, July). CF, burnout, and compassion satisfaction among oncology nurses in the United States and Canada. In Oncol Nurs Forum (Vol. 43, No. 4, pp. E161-E169).
Wu et al (2016) emphasize the essence of supportive work environments to address CF. Supportive environments can be developed through responsible workforce designs that enhance effective leadership styles and teamwork which strengthen the quality of nurse-patient relations whose greatest predictor is time. Wu et al (2016) also recommend that nurses working with patients who require long-term care should be educated on specific tools to assess and care for themselves. These tools help to detect and manage physical and psychological consequences which can result in better pa
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