Concept Analysis of Compassion Fatigue and Its Role in Nursing

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Concept Analysis of Compassion Fatigue and its Role in Nursing Compassion fatigue (CF) is a concept that occurs to any healthcare provider caring for others after prolonged periods of stress or trauma. According to Coetzee and Klopper (2010), CF is when the compassion given by nurses has been exhausted due to constant strain of self, continual stress, and constant interaction with patients. Nurses having to deal with staffing shortages with increased patient loads, being verbal and emotional abused by patients, and constant criticism from physicians on what has not been done. Eventually this can takes a toll, even on the best nurses. This paper will provide a thorough concept analysis of CF by outlining various definitions, detailing how it influences nursing practice, discussing attributes of CF and providing case scenarios to elaborate on this concept within nursing.
Compassion Fatigue in Nursing Practice When people think about nurses, compassion and caring are two adjectives used to describe them. These words are the reason why many nurses come into the profession. They want to help and care for patients helping them get back to their normal lives. Eventually, having compassion and showing concern for others without appreciation leads to CF. The chaotic environment with high acuity patients, unrealistic patient expectations along with workplace violence are some the criteria that leads to CF (Flarity, Gentry, & Mesnikoff, 2013). Additional factors causing CF are the higher patient loads, physician-nurse relationships, administrative support, and multidisciplinary services all lead to nurses leaving the profession because they feel overworked and unappreciated. Eventually, this causes the facilities to lose out on receiving full reimbursements from Medicare because of low patient satisfaction scores (Hooper, Craig, Janvrin, Wetsel, & Reimels, 2010). Nurses

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