Abstract

Compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction are two inter-related concepts. Individuals in helping professions may occasionally face compassion fatigue from giving so much of themselves to others. Compassion fatigue has been studied in a variety of settings: medical, social work, nursing, law enforcement, and fire departments, to name a few. While some researchers have studied nurses, little published work has focused exclusively on nurses who care for specialty pediatric populations. Additionally, there is scant research on whether compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue are associated with patient satisfaction. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of compassion satisfaction and compassion fatigue among pediatric nurses and whether there was an association with patient satisfaction. This descriptive study was conducted in a large academic medical center in the Southwestern United States. A convenience sample of 231 nurses working with children in inpatient or outpatient settings completed an online demographic questionnaire and the Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) 5 tool, which measured compassion satisfaction and two dimensions of compassion fatigue: burnout and secondary traumatic stress. Results of this study showed that the nurses had a moderate to high level of compassion satisfaction, a low level of burnout, and a low to moderate level of secondary traumatic stress. There were no differences in the level of compassion satisfaction or burnout related to demographic characteristics, clinical unit type, or years of experience of nurses. There were no differences in the levels of compassion satisfaction or compassion fatigue based on the levels of patient satisfaction according to unit type.

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 10270051; ProQuest document ID: 1948797165. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Maribeth Thornton, PhD, MBA, MSN, BSN, ADN, NE-BC, CCM

Sigma Membership

Gamma Sigma

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Descriptive/Correlational

Research Approach

Quantitative Research

Keywords:

Compassion Satisfaction, Compassion Fatigue, Patient Satisfaction, Nurse Sensitive Indicators, Pediatric Nurses

Advisor

Mark Parshall

Second Advisor

Marie Lobo

Third Advisor

Sara Frasch

Fourth Advisor

Ryan Jacobson

Degree

PhD

Degree Grantor

The University of New Mexico

Degree Year

2017

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2022-06-15

Full Text of Presentation

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