Resilience and Compassion Fatigue Among Registered Nurses in Ghana

Abstract

In the healthcare sector, nurses provide health care services to different clients which can resultin compassion fatigue. The resilience of nurses helps to provide control of compassion fatigue.The purpose of this study is to examine if there is a relationship between resilience andcompassion fatigue and also find a significant difference in resilience and compassion fatiguein terms of sex, age, and clinical experience. Correlational research design was utilized where249 registered nurses were conveniently sampled from Ghana. The study utilized a Resiliencequestionnaire Scale developed by Wagnild and Young (2010) and Professional quality of life(ProQOL) scale developed by Stamm (2010) was adapted and modified for compassion fatigue.The statistical treatments used were and Pearson Correlation, T-Test and ANOVA to addressthe research questions. The study showed that there was a high positive significant relationshipbetween resilience and compassion fatigue. There was a significant difference in age and sexon compassion fatigue however, no significant on clinical experience. Sex and clinicalexperience showed a significant difference in resilience but no significant difference when agewas considered. The results of the study suggest that registered nurses in Ghana experiencehigh compassion fatigue. In preventing the compassion fatigue of the nurse's measures shouldbe instituted to increase the resilience level of the nurses. Healthcare administrators should putin measures to reduce the compassion fatigue of the nurses. Further researchers should exploreother variables in relation to the resilience to help reduce the compassion fatigue of nurses