Compassion fatigue among DNP students
Background: Compassion fatigue is severe emotional and physical exhaustion resulting from unresolved burnout and/or secondary traumatic stress. Prevalent in registered nurses and physicians, CF negatively impacts both the caregiver and the care provided and is associated with job attrition. There is no direct measure for CF. Risk is assigned according to the intensity of each constituent part and the relationships between these parts.
Methods: A descriptive study was performed to describe: 1) the prevalence of compassion satisfaction; 2) the prevalence of burnout; 3) the prevalence of secondary traumatic stress; 4) the prevalence of risk profiles developed by Stamm (2010); and 5) the relationship between demographic characteristics and CF risk profiles in a sample of DNP students. 59 graduate nursing students seeking nurse practitioner certification and a DNP degree self-selected to participate in the study. The Professional Quality of Life Scale-5 (ProQOL 5) was utilized to measure the components of CF: compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. Patient demographics included: gender, age, years in nursing, nursing specialty, and employment status.
Results: The DNP student population appears to be at-risk for CF, with 69% of the sample demonstrating moderate to high risk for CF. 63% of participants did not fit within Stamm’s (2010) five profiles, so the profiles were expanded to include the entire sample. There were no statistically significant relationships between demographic variables and the expanded CF risk profiles, consistent with previous studies on the individual ProQOL components. A weak trend of increasing CF risk with years of nursing practice suggests that accumulated exposure to suffering increases CF risk. Furthermore, several participants who scored in the moderate risk profile self-identified as being away from patient care for six months to 10 years.
Implications: DNP students are at risk for CF, and it is highly likely that the students enter graduate education with unresolved CF. The applicability of the ProQOL 5 test is hindered by scoring inconsistencies and self-normalization bias; therefore this instrument should not be the sole method of identifying those at risk for CF. We recommend incorporation of CF education, self-awareness, and risk reduction techniques into the DNP curriculum.