Compassion fatigue

What are we aiming for?

. The administration of care is the essence and hallmark of the health professions. Caring without compassion deteriorates the professional and his or her work with the sick person. Compassion fatigue generates disinterest in the work, discomfort and sometimes depression with consequences that affect both the health of the professional and the quality of care provided. The main way to prevent it is to be aware of its existence and to promote intervention programmes that favour support and care....

Stamm's model of professional quality of life

Both phenomena, compassion fatigue and burnout, have been studied, together with secondary traumatic stress, as very influential concepts in health professionals, and several theoretical models have attempted to fit these constructs together. The three concepts mentioned above have overlapping symptoms, which is why we have decided to present only one model, perhaps the one that best links them. This is the model described in 2010 by Stamm. 0This author coined the term "quality of professional l...

Symptoms of Compassion Fatigue

Compassion Fatigue is considered a progressive syndrome, with characteristics similar to those of other stress disorders, such as secondary post-traumatic stress disorder or vicarious trauma, these are : Emotional reconnection with the traumatic experience, avoidance and physical and affective distancing from the ill person and/or others. Hyperarousal, staying predominantly in a state of alertness, tension and high reactivity. The symptoms manifested by nurses often go unnoticed and may b...

What is compassion fatigue?

The high level of complexity, technification and bureaucratisation of our current healthcare system means that nursing professionals are highly occupied with the tasks that this entails, while the possibility of meeting the sick person being cared for has diminished. On a daily basis, nurses work with situations of pain and suffering, they must deal with issues of great intimacy and accompany or make decisions that have a great psycho-emotional impact. All this with hardly any specific training ...