Compassion Fatigue: The Known, Unknown

Abstract

‘Compassion,’ known as a fundamental feature of the nursing profession, and considered a motivation to act to alleviate the suffering of others. Compassion fatigue is expressed as an adverse effect of helping individuals suffering from traumatic events or otherwise. However, compassion fatigue is defined differently in in recent nursing studies, and the developmental process of compassion fatigue has been explained with the help of different models. Since compassion fatigue, a subject of interest for nurse researchers, lacks a clear understanding, it leads to a conceptual complexity in previous studies. In this review, compassion, compassion fatigue, concepts related to compassion fatigue, and the development of compassion fatigue are discussed in the light of previous studies