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Impact of compassion fatigue
The definition of nursing
The definition of nursing
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The American Nurses Association (2014) defines nursing as, “ The protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, communities, and populations.” Nursing is a profession which integrates science, knowledge, and interpersonal skills to provide quality care to individuals, families, and communities. Nurses not only share knowledge but also common attributes. Generally, nurses are nurturing, compassionate, and empathetic. These qualities are needed along with foundational knowledge to provide the best possible care for patients. Nursing is a profession in which you experience critically ill, suffering, and traumatic patients on a daily basis. The casual occurrence of traumatic events wears on one’s emotional endurance. The building stress of caring for suffering patients can lead to the phenomenon known as compassion fatigue.
A nurses’ job can be a rewarding and gratifying profession, however consistently caring for those in need can lead to severe stress especially when a nurses’ interventions fail to improve the patient situation. Joinson (1992) described this occurrence as, “ Overpowering, invasive stress which begins to dominate us and interfere with our ability to function. We become angry, ineffective, apathetic, and depressed. These symptoms are classified as burnout, particularly when they apply to our work” (p. 116). Joinson continues to explain compassion fatigue is a form of burnout unique to caregiving professionals. Although compassion fatigue is often mistaken as burnout, each are separate concepts that share similarities. Burnout occurs wh...
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...rest. If you are feeling compassion fatigued, you need to gain some introspection, identify personal stressors, and find a balance. It is a sad irony that some nurses are so unselfish and nurturing to others but ignore their personal emotional and physical health. The work setting interventions are impactful but I think the most important treatment for compassion fatigue is to separate the caregiver from the worksite since the worksite is where the stemming relationships occur. Formal counseling is absolutely needed as well as support groups for the staff. Also it is important for managers to recognize early signs of compassion fatigue in their workers and provide advice and guidance. Nursing is a rewarding and fulfilling profession but also a stressful one. Finding a balance between work and life is crucial in the longevity of your career as well as your life.
Often time, nurses has been viewed by patients, their family members and the medical team as basic emotional care givers, pill crushers or cart pullers and not as healthcare professionals who are more interesting in health promotion, disease prevention and better patient outcomes. They also often forget the emotional, physical, mental, and caring part that is involved with the profession. And to make matters worse, nurses are continued to be viewed as a threat by doctors more than ever before especially with the opening of Nurse Practitioners programs.
Leo Buscaglia once said, “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” In the field of nursing, this concept could not be illustrated more profoundly. The trait of caring within nursing is arguably the most important trait that a nurse could possess. It can be defined in various ways, but to me, caring is the act of being moved or compelled to action by feelings of compassion, empathy, sympathy, anger, intention, sadness, fear, happiness, protection, enlightenment, or love in light of another human being. There are many aspects to the term “caring”. It is an ever-present shape shifter, swiftly
It can be related to feelings of hopelessness and lack of meaning, anxiety, decreased ability to concentrate, irritability, insomnia, emotional numbing, lack of empathy, and escapist activities (such a self-medicating with drugs and alcohol). This is in direct opposition to the idea that nurses would be responsive to an insightful of their clients needs. Dennis Portnoy wrote “Compassion fatigue was often triggered by patient care situations in which nurses believed that their actions would “not make a difference” or “never seemed to be enough”. He further elaborated in the article Burnout and compassion Fatigue that nurses who experienced this syndrome also did so because of systemic issues such as; overtime worked, high patient acuity, high patient census, heavy patient assignments, high acuity, overtime and extra workdays, personal issues, lack of energy and lack of experience (Portnoy, 2011). These issues, interfere with the nurses' ability to identify with the patient and to tune in to important issues and obscure symptoms. Once consideration is that nurses can use Orlando’s theory to identify and address their own needs and respond with the same level of consideration to their own needs in order to prevent a burn out
One of the most serious issues in nursing, that can affect a nurses career is nursing burn- out. According to the article “Where have all the nurses gone”, current nurses that are practicing, report high rates of job dissatisfaction (which is part of burn out) and 1 of 5 nurses may quit nursing in the next 5 years (Dworkin, 2002). Burnout is associated with nurses not coming in to work, not feeling satisfied when doing their job, high turnover rates and a lack of commitment to the work (Katisfaraki, 2013). If a nurse becomes burned- out, they may not take care of their patients as well and could make mistakes with medication administration. A study performed in the United States by Dr. Jeannie Cimiottti, shows that hospitals with high burn-out rates among nurses have higher levels UTI’s, and surgical infections (World, 2012). Nursing burnout not only affects the nurse, but it also affects the patient, the nurses’ colleagues, and the nurses’ family; nursing burn out often leads to emotional exhaustion and depression, that can effect relations and communication between the nurse effected and the person they are communicating with. This paper will cover what burn-out is, who is susceptible to burn out, and treatment and prevent nursing burn out.
Nurse fatigue is a serious topic not only in the nursing profession circles but in the health sector as a whole. The effects of nurse fatigue are serious in a way that the issue can no longer be ignored. As discussed in this paper, it is important for nurses to be aware of the signs of fatigue and take adequate action when it happens. It is also possible for nurses to develop a work ethic that ensures nurses do not reach the point of fatigue
According to Taylor (2008) the definition of nurse is from the meaning of the Latin word nutrix, which means “to nourish”. Nursing has a focus of caring for every patient physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually. To meet the needs of every patient, nurses must take on many roles, but the main role being care giver (Taylor, 2008, p.14). Caring for another person requires many traits, and the most common is compassion. The definition of compassion is “sympathetic consciousness of another’s distress with a desire to alleviate it” (Merriam-Webster dictionary, 2011). Compassion and the desire to nourish may have been deciding factors that would lead one to pursue a career in nursing. Nurses over the span of their career will have extensive exposure to trauma, pain and unfortunate situations. Workplace stressors such as scheduling and increasing workload along with repeated exposure to the hardships of others predisposes caregivers, especially nurses, to develop a unique type of burn out labeled compassion fatigue (Joinson 1992). Compassion fatigue develops when a nurse unintentionally takes on the misfortune, anxiety, pain and trauma of the patients they care for. It is a negative emotional and physical response to the unfortunate situations that can arise in the profession of care giving. The “detrimental effects can include exhaustion, an inability to focus and a decrease in productivity, as well as unhappiness, self-doubt and loss of passion and enthusiasm” (Lester, 2010, p. 11). Compassion fatigue will develop suddenly versus burnout which develops gradually (Boyle, 2011, p. 9). This abrupt onset of symptoms will hinder the nurse’s ability develop a trusting and therapeutic relationship with...
Burnout is a highly unusual type of stress disorder that is essentially characterized by emotional exhaustion, lack of empathy with patients, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishments. The nature of the work that healthcare practitioners perform predisposes them to emotional exhaustion. On the other hand, the lack of empathy towards patients is caused by the nurses feeling that they are underpaid and unappreciated. Numerous researches have associated burnout with the increasing rate of nurse turnover. This paper explores the causes of burnouts in nurses as well as what can be done to prevent the them.
Nurses want to give complete and quality care, but are unable to, due to the constant needs of their workload and inadequate staffing. They have to prioritize their patients needs based on the most critical treatments first. Then whatever time is left, they fill in what treatments they can. Some reasons that nursing treatments are missed include: too few staff, time required for the nursing intervention, poor use of existing staff resources and ineffective delegation.” (Kalisch, 2006) Many nurses become emotionally stressed and unsatisfied with their jobs. (Halm et al., 2005; Kalisch,
The nursing profession is one of the most physically, emotionally, and mentally taxing career fields. Working long shifts, placing other’s needs before your own, dealing with sickness and death on a regular basis, and working in a high stress environment are all precursors to developing occupational burnout in the nursing profession. Burnout refers to physical, emotional and mental exhaustion, which can lead to an emotionally detached nurse, who feels hopeless, apathetic, and unmotivated. Burnout extends beyond the affected nurse and begins to affect the care patients receive. Researchers have found that hospitals with high burnout rates have lower patient satisfaction scores (Aiken et al 2013). There are various measures that nurses can take
...e with compassion fatigue will be of no use to help with the patient’s emotional and spiritual needs. The emotions of both the nurse and the patient needs to be met in order to establish good communication and compassionate care between the two.
The pediatric oncology unit has become a heavily studied area for those interested in prevention of compassion fatigue, burnout, and identification of those character traits that offer increased resilience. Nurses are expected to maintain professionalism and appropriate work-life balance but this may become a difficult task on a unit where children have a chronic, intensive, and potentially life-ending condition. Nurses become close to the patient and their family and when death occurs they too may feel a great sense of intense grief and loss. The acknowledgment of this grief and the promotion of adequate self-care habits, work-life divisions, and the ability to recognize when help may be needed are amongst the most important means in prevention of burnout and compassion fatigue. In addition to utilization of positive coping skills by the nurse a responsibility by the organization is also necessary to prevent staff burnout and turnover. The organization is responsible for acknowledgement of a loss on the unit. Presentation of prompt and anonymous counseling services to everyone on the unit following a death and regularly on high-risk units is just one of the many ways an organization can continue to decrease the loss of good nurses to compassion fatigue and
ompassion fatigue is a real problem that many people face: doctors, nurses, and child welfare workers, to name a few. For this paper, I will be focusing on compassion fatigue as it pertains to child welfare workers. Compassion fatigue is also called secondary stress trauma, or STS. When a child welfare worker works with children who have experienced trauma, it sometimes transfers onto themselves, that is- they can begin to show symptoms of trauma or experience a lot of stress. This can affect the worker physically, emotionally, & even spiritually. Physical symptoms that can happen are: headaches, digestive problems, sleep disturbances, fatigue, and even cardiac symptoms like chest pain. Some of the emotional problems that happen are: mood
According to the American Nurses Association, nursing is defined as “the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and abilities, prevention of illness and injury, facilitation of healing, alleviation of suffering through the diagnosis and treatment of human response, and advocacy in the care of individuals, families, groups, communities, and populations” (American Nurses Association, 2016). Nurses have many jobs and responsibilities and wear many different hats. Nurses can perform at many different levels depending on their scope of practice which is defined by the board of nursing in one’s state of residence. It is important as nurses to understand and follow
Compassion fatigue is defined as “The emotional residue or strains of exposure to working with those suffering from the consequences of traumatic events” (The American Institute of Stress, n.d.). Compassion fatigue occurs when healthcare workers, especially those who work with patients one-on-one daily, feel the emotional stress of their jobs starting to wear on them. For example, a person who works with a cancer patient and watches that patient worsen and finally pass away, may experience great emotional pain. Dealing with stressful situations over time could also cause compassion fatigue. One way to prevent compassion fatigue is through implementation of Schwartz rounds. “Schwartz rounds are not 'problem solving'. Instead, the focus is on the emotional experiences of staff caring for patients and they allow staff to explore, in an environment that is safe and confidential, situations that confront them.” (Thompson, A. (2013). Schwartz rounds are like support groups for healthcare workers. They allow healthcare providers to share their struggles as caregivers and solve their strugg...
Fatigue as defined in the Medical Dictionary is a "physical and/or mental exhaustion that can be triggered by stress, medication, overwork, or mental and physical illness or disease. Fatigue and sleepiness are often used interchangeable, however they are distinct experiences. Sleepiness refers to a disposition to fall asleep, while fatigue describes an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion, tiredness associated with a weakened physical and/or cognitive ability. Sleepiness and fatigue often coexist in many professions. The nursing profession is no exception. We are aware of media coverage of past catastrophic accidents. Fatigue has been noted as a major causative factor in some aviation and nuclear power industries accidents. The National