Compassion fatigue in Nursing professionals Palliative Care Units: literature review

Abstract

Today, compassion fatigue is a major problem that significantly affects healthcare professionals. Objectives: To analyze whether working in a palliative care service predisposes nursing professionals to the appearance of symptoms related to compassion fatigue. Methods: Non-systematic literature review. A literature search was carried out using different databases of primary and secondary sources and meta-search engines, mainly using the following descriptors: "Nursing", "Palliative care" and "Compassion fatigue". Inclusion and exclusion criteria were established and, finally, the scientific articles were evaluated with their corresponding quality tool (STROBE and qualitative CASPe). Results: Levels of compassion fatigue are high among palliative care nurses. According to studies, work and personal factors show a statistically significant association with compassion fatigue. Conclusions: Nursing professionals develop compassion fatigue to a large extent in the palliative care service. In addition, factors associated with increased compassion fatigue have been established in an attempt to eradicate this phenomenon. Further research is needed to investigate the effectiveness of different intervention programmes for the correct management of compassion fatigue.