Compassion Fatigue In Emergency Nursing

What was once thought of as a profession driven by compassion and the desire to help those in need has now become filled with weary burnt out nurses who have lost sight of their purpose. Stress has caused them to distance themselves from the principles nursing is built upon. Our health care system needs to be revamped to improve the quality of care being administered. Nurses can be proactive and take steps to avoid burning out but, our health care administrators have to take matters into their hands because they have the capacity to initiate change. They must realize the gravity of the situation and take an offensive position to make a stand against the crisis of nursing

Every day nurses are faced with ethical dilemmas. Challenges in these situations are becoming more and more complex due to increasing workload and sicker patients. When a nursing unit is understaffed not only are nurses more likely to become burnt out, but their patients are far less likely to receive the quality of care they deserve. The problem is that the Federal regulations require hospitals who participate in Medicare to “have ‘adequate’ numbers of licensed nurses (RN, LPN, CNA) to provide care to all patients as needed,” but the regulations

Palliative care continues to evolve in providing better end-of-life care and so does nursing care. Thus, nursing practice is enhanced to satisfy the demand of the palliative care. A nurse provides complex care and fulfils the needs of the patients. Nursing involves in caring work, which focus on patient experiencing agony in palliative and haematological cancer care. Nurses worked in a taxing environment, that can be highly stressful, and often they experience physical, psychological and spiritual exhaustion. This nature of work can have devastating effects on the health and wellbeing of a nurse. There are three concepts related to adverse consequences of caring work: these are compassion fatigue, burnout and vicarious traumatization.

Burnout is quite common among caregivers. According to Lyndon (2016), the emotional intensity and work environment associated with caregiving put clinicians at an elevated risk of burnout. However, there has been an alarming prevalence of burnout in health care workers which raises concerns about patient safety and the overall quality of care. Dyrbye et al. (2017) attribute increase in burnout to changes in the healthcare delivery system. In their discussion paper, the authors assert that shifting patient demographics have resulted in changes in healthcare which have put increased burdens on healthcare professionals resulting in a highly burned out clinician population. Available research suggests that more than half of US’s physician population

Compassion fatigue experienced by doctors and nurse, the term is used to describe their emotionless and apathy to the patients. However, today, compassion fatigue appears everywhere, not only happens with healthy professionals but also with all the caregivers, and even to us and to any person. Compassion fatigue becomes more common in media. In fact, compassion fatigue has been called a form of burnout to describe ‘journalists’ secondary trauma in being routinely exposed to atrocities. Again, journalism analysts indicate that media has caused widespread compassion fatigue to the public by saturating news and information. This research presents an understanding of compassion fatigue in different circumstances and possible consequences of it in media.

In the counseling profession, counselors are at risk of experiencing burnout, vicarious trauma, and compassion fatigue. It is imperative for counselors to recognize the symptoms of each emotional stressors and implement a wellness strategy to prevent them. When counselors encounter burnout, it affects the counseling process in both the counselor and the client. Sangganjanavanich and Balkin (2013) defined burnout as feelings of emotional fatigue due to work-related stress. In addition, another definition of burnout is that burnout occurs when there is prolonged stress. Burnout also mean a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that results from long-term involvement in work situations that are emotional draining (Moate, Gnika,

I wish a Mack truck would hit me on the way work today” my friend

Compassion can be described as showing concern and being sympathetic to the people that are suffering. Patients go through the suffering due to their illnesses. A nurse has leave various comfort zones for them to ensure that they are fully engaged with whatever suffering that their patients are going through. In McNeill, Morrison, & Nouwen’s book of Compassion, “God’s compassion is not something abstract or indefinite, but a concrete, specific gesture in which God reaches out to us.” For Christian nurses, we are fully aware of what our patients are going through. We are passionate regarding the lives of other people. Compassionate care is a product that nurses should provide to our patients. Compassion ensures that the nurses manage to build

Many factors influence the nurse ability to provide safe, effective, and high quality patient’s care. Among these factors, nurse fatigue. Nurse fatigue occurs generally as a result of a lack of adequate sleep, working extended shift hours, 2-3 back to back 12 hours shifts with no inadequate time to sleep. As a soon to be novice nurse, we need to be aware of the impacts that fatigue can have on the delivery of our care and most importantly the safety of the patients, coworkers and self. In fact, fatigue greatly decrease the nurse ability to provide safe care through increased likelihood of medical errors (e.g; administration of the wrong medication or dose to the wrong patient) causing harm. Our role and responsibility as a nurse is to be the

Another contributor to burnout is compassion fatigue which refers to a state of chronic stress as a result of witnessing the affliction of others. It’s when a nurse becomes emotionally exhausted from caring for those that are suffering. Compassion fatigue has become so critical that psychologist refer to it as secondary traumatic stress disorder. It has become prevalent due to the increase in occurrences of chronic illnesses.

I pulled into the driveway and shut off the car. Exhausted, I walked into the house where I immediately stripped out of my soiled scrubs and jumped into the shower. As if trying to wash the day’s events down the shower drain, I scrubbed my body and slowly rinsed off

Relationship between staff nurses and nurse managers are particularly important when examining stress and burnout. Numeric rating from a survey of 1,780 RNs indicated that supervisor support and quality of supervision were lowest for nurse managers. 53 handwritten comments from 509 (28.6 percent) of the RNs clarified these ratings by nothing the following problems: (a) inadequate unit leadership and the frequent turnover of nurse mangers, (b) insufficient physical presence of the supervisor on the unit, (c) failure to address problem – too much sweeping them aside or not even being they exit, and (d) modest awareness of numerous staffing issues.

Nurses dispense comfort, compassion, and caring without even a prescription ~ Val Saintsbury (Nursing and Compassion, 2015, expression 2).

The first statement in table 4.b, “I am enthusiastic about my job,” has the highest mean of 5.15 (very often) and the second statement “I am proud of the work that I do” has the second highest mean of 5.12 (very often). ED staff nurses identified respect and trust gained from the patients and their family that make them enthusiastic and proud of their work. This reason was exemplified by one nurse who stated that “May lumapit sa akin sa market na isang babae para bumati at nagpapasalamat sa pag-alaga ko sa kanya noon daw sa emergency room (ER).” (“While I was at the market, a woman approached and thanked me for taking care of her when she was in the Emergency Room.”).

When comparing new and older employees, it is imperative to look at the labour force being convoluted by the minute. As the older employees are coming closer to retirement, there will be a need for skilled employees to replace the retirees, especially in the nursing field. According to the Canadian Nurses Association, Canada will be short almost 60,000 full-time equivalents of Registered Nurses (RNs) in 2022 (“Tested Solution”, 2009). Despite the many openings available currently, the number of skilled nursing students are very limited and they have to compete with nurses who decide to work beyond retirement, thus making entry into the field more difficult. Meanwhile, new graduates