Compassion Fatigue and Nursing Education: A Q-Methodology Study

Saturday, 27 July 2019

Simone M. Wooten, BSN
Desiree Hensel, PhD, RN, PCNS-BC, CNE
School of Nursing, Curry College, Milton, MA, USA

Purpose: Compassion fatigue is a phenomenon that is experienced by a vast number of health care workers and those whose work is to help others. Also known as secondary traumatic stress syndrome, compassion fatigue results from caregivers handling the stress of an encumbered healthcare system, along with the emotions and trauma affecting their patients. Although experienced daily, a significant number of caregivers do not take the time they should to practice self-care and self-compassion, leading to inevitable lack of empathy and compassion for others. Caregivers who are affected psychologically, physically, spiritually, and socially with no recovery are then unable to care for patients holistically.

Much of the current literature using surrounding compassion fatigue involves the analysis of self-reported survey data collected on tools such as the ProQOL. Such studies assess the signs and symptoms associated with compassion fatigue, but not what leads to the symptoms and/or when those symptoms begin. The purpose of this study is to explore how nursing students and faculty experienced compassion and compassion fatigue during their pre-licensure nursing education.

Methods: This IRB approved Q methodology study will use a purposive of participants recruited from one nursing program in the eastern United States. There will be approximately 40 participants that will include entry-level, mid-level, end-level nursing students, and nursing faculty. The Q sample will include 40 opinion statements about perceived compassion behaviors of faculty, students, and self. Participants will rank order their level of agreement and disagreement on a -5 to +5 sorting sheet. Using Ken Q Analysis software, the Q sorts will undergo by-person factor analysis to find groups with shared viewpoints. Normalized Z scores will be calculated to show how much the participants loading on a factor agreed or disagreed with each of the 40 statements.

Results: Data will be displayed as a factor arrays for each of discovered viewpoints. A narrative discussion will address levels of consensus and differences among the viewpoints.

Conclusion: Understanding nursing student and faculty perceptions of the subject may help increase our understanding if the dawn of compassion fatigue lies within nursing education. This information in turn lead to the implementation of targeted intervention strategies to prevent compassion fatigue.