Before They Crash and Burn (Out): A Compassion Fatigue Resilience Model

Abstract

Introduction: We propose a working model of compassion fatigue resilience by identifying compassion fatigue (CF) and compassion satisfaction correlates as potential targets for building resilience. Further, we explore focusing on pre-professionals as a method of primary prevention of CF. Methods: The participants were 143 college students who completed self-report measures to assess current CF, self-care behaviors, self-care beliefs, self-esteem, frequency of helping behaviors, and exposure to others under extreme stress. Results: Notably, hierarchical regression analyses (controlling for helping frequency and exposure to high stress individuals) suggested that self-care beliefs and self-care behaviors contributed to concurrent experiences of CF, through secondary traumatic stress (R2 =.3, F(5,135) = 11.69, p