Frontline mental health care professionals (FMHPs) in a variety of roles such as nursing, social work, psychology, psychiatry, case managers and mental health workers are often required to provide a high degree of care to clients over time which can result in physical and psychological complaints often referred to as compassion fatigue (CF). The aim of this nonexperimental, cross sectional study was to determine the relationships among compassion satisfaction (CS), compassion fatigue (CF), work life conditions and burnout among FMHPs. The Professional Quality of Life Revision IV (ProQOL), the Areas of Work Life Survey, Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey and a Demographic Data sheet were completed by 169 FMHPs. Consistent with our hypothesis, higher levels of compassion satisfaction, lower levels of compassion fatigue, and higher overall degree of fit in the six areas of work life were predictive of lower burnout in FMHPs.
AbendrothM.FlanneryJ. (2006). Predicting the risk of compassion fatigue: A study of hospice nurses. Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing, 8, 346-356.
2.
Abu-BaderS. H. (2000). Work satisfaction, burnout, and turnover among social workers in Israel: A causal diagram. International Journal of Social Welfare, 9, 191-200.
3.
AckerG. M. (2011). Burnout among mental health care providers. Journal of Social Work, 1-16. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/1468017310392418
4.
AikenL. H.ClarkeS. P.SloaneD. M.SochalskiJ.SilberJ. H. (2002). Hospital nurse staffing and patient mortality, nurse burnout, and job dissatisfaction. Journal of the American Medical Association, 288, 1987-1993.
5.
AlkemaK.LintonJ. M.DaviesR. (2008). A study of the relationship between self-care, compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, and burnout among hospice professionals. Journal of Social Work in End-Of-Life & Palliative Care, 4, 101-119.
6.
AustinW.GobleE.LeierB.ByrneP. (2009). Compassion fatigue: The experience of nurses. Ethics and Social Welfare, 3, 195-214.
7.
BairdK.KracenA.C. (2006). Vicarious traumatization and secondary traumatic stress: A research synthesis. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 19, 181-188.
8.
BellH.KulkarniS.DaltonL. (2003). Organizational prevention of vicarious trauma. Families in Society, 84, 463-470.
9.
Benevides-PereiraA. M. T.Das Neves AlvesR. (2007). A study on burnout syndrome in healthcare providers to people living with HIV. AIDS Care, 19, 565-571.
10.
BoberT.RegehrC. (2006). Strategies for reducing secondary or vicarious trauma: Do they work?Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention, 6, 1-9.
11.
BrideB. E. (2004). The impact of providing psychosocial services to traumatized populations. Stress, Trauma, and Crisis, 7(1), 29-46.
12.
BrideB. E.RadeyM.FigleyC. R. (2007). Measuring compassion fatigue. Clinical Social Work Journal, 35, 155-163.
13.
BuchananM.AndersonJ. O.UhlemannM. R.HorwitzE. (2006). Secondary traumatic stress: An investigation of Canadian mental health workers. Traumatology, 12, 272-281.
14.
ChoJ.LaschingerH.WongC. (2006). Workplace empowerment, work engagement and organizational commitment of new graduate nurses. Nursing Research, 19(3), 43-60.
15.
ClarkM.GioroS. (1998). Nurses, indirect trauma, and prevention. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 30(1), 85.
16.
CollinsS.LongA. (2003). Too tired to care? The psychological effects of working with trauma. Journal of Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing, 10(1), 17-27.
17.
CraigC. D.SprangG. (2010). Compassion satisfaction, compassion fatigue, and burnout in a national sample of trauma treatment therapists. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 23, 319-339.
18.
de CarvalhoE. C.MullerM.BachionP. (2005). Stress in the professional practice of oncology nursing. Cancer Nursing, 28, 187-192.
19.
DevillyG. J.WrightR.VarkerT. (2009). Vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress or simply burnout? Effect of trauma therapy on mental health professionals. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 43, 373-385.
20.
DillmanD. A. (1991). The design and administration of mail surveys. Annual Review of Sociology, 17, 225-249.
21.
DillmanD. A. (2007). Mail and internet surveys: The tailored design method (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
22.
DotyD. H.GlickW. H. (1998). Common methods bias: Does common methods variance really bias results?Organizational Research Methods, 1, 374-406.
23.
FaulF.ErdfelderE.LangA.G.BuchnerA. (2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175-191.
24.
FigleyC. R. (1995). Compassion fatigue: Coping with secondary traumatic stress disorder in those who treat the traumatized. New York, NY: Brunner/Mazel.
25.
FigleyC. R. (2001). Compassion fatigue as secondary traumatic stress: An overview. In FigleyC. R. (Ed.), Compassion fatigue: Coping with secondary traumatic stress disorder (2nd ed., pp. 1-20). New York, NY: Bruner/Mazel.
26.
FigleyC. R. (2002). Compassion fatigue: Psychotherapists’ chronic lack of self care. Journal of Clinical Psychology/In Session, 58, 1433-1441.
27.
GlasbergA. L.ErikssonS.NorbergA. (2007). Burnout and “stress of conscience” among healthcare personnel. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 57, 392-403.
28.
GrecoP.LaschingerH.WongC. (2006). Leader empowering behaviours, staff nurse empowerment, and work engagement/burnout. Nursing Leadership, 19(4), 41-56.
29.
HallD. (2004).Work-related stress of registered nurses in a hospital setting. Journal for Nurses in Staff Development, 20(1), 6-14.
30.
IlhanM. N.DurukanE.TanerE.MaralI.BuminM. A. (2008). Burnout and its correlates among nursing staff: Questionnaire survey. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 61, 100-106.
31.
ImaiH.NakaoH.TsuchiyaM.KurodaY.KatohT. (2004). Burnout and work environments of public health nurses involved in mental health care. Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 61, 764-768.
32.
JanssenP. M.deJongeJ.BakkerA. B. (1999). Specific determinants of intrinsic work motivation, burnout and turnover intentions: A study among nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 29, 1360-1369.
33.
JoinsonC. (1992). Coping with compassion fatigue. Nursing, 22, 116-122.
34.
KillianK. D. (2008). Helping till it hurts? A multimethod study of compassion fatigue, burnout, and self-care in clinicians working with trauma survivors. Traumatology, 14(2), 32-44.
35.
LaschingerH. (2010). Staff nurse work engagement in Canadian hospital settings: The influence of workplace empowerment and six areas of work life. In AlbrechtS. (Ed.), The handbook of employee engagement: Perspectives, issues research and practice (pp. 309-322). Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar.
36.
LaschingerH.FineganJ. (2005). Empowering nurses for work engagement and health in hospital settings. Journal of Nursing Administration, 35, 439-449.
37.
LaschingerH. K. S.LeiterM.DayA.GlinD. (2009). Workplace empowerment, incivility, and burnout: Impact on staff nurse recruitment and retention outcomes. Journal of Nursing Management, 17, 302-311.
38.
LaschingerH. K.ShamianJ.ThomsonD. (2001). Impact of Magnet Hospital characteristics on nurses’ perceptions of trust, burnout, quality of care, and work satisfaction. Nursing Economics, 19, 209-219.
39.
LaschingerH.WongC.GrecoP. (2006). The impact of staff nurse empowerment on person-job fit and work engagement/burnout. Nursing Administration Quarterly, 30, 358-367.
40.
LasalviaA.BonettoC.BertaniM.BissoliS.CristfaloD.MarellaG.RuggeriM. (2009). Influence of perceived organizational factors on job burnout: Survey of community mental health staff. British Journal of Psychiatry, 195, 537-544.
41.
LauvrudC.NonstadK.PalmstiernaT. (2009). Occurrence of post traumatic stress symptoms and their relationship to professional quality of life (ProQoL) in nursing staff at forensic psychiatric security unit: A cross-sectional study. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 7, 31.
42.
LeeR. T.AshforthB. E. (1996). A meta-analytic examination of the correlates of the three dimensions of job burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81, 123-133.
43.
LeiterM. P.HarvieP. L. (1996). Burnout among mental health workers: A review and a research agenda. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 42, 90-101.
44.
LeiterM. P.HarvieP.FrizzellC. (1998). The correspondence of patient satisfaction and nurse burnout. Social Science & Medicine, 47, 1611-1617.
45.
LeiterM. P.MaslachC. (1988). The impact of interpersonal environment on burnout and organizational commitment. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 9, 297-308.
46.
LeiterM. P.MaslachC. (2000). Preventing burnout and building engagement: A complete program for organizational renewal. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
47.
LeiterM. P.MaslachC. (2004). Areas of work life: A structured approach to organizational predictors of job burnout. In PerrewéP.GansterC. D. (Eds.), Research in occupational stress and well-being: Vol. 3, Emotional and physiological processes and positive intervention strategies (pp. 91-134). Oxford, England: JAI Press/Elsevier.
48.
LeiterM.MaslachC. (2009). Nurse turnover: The mediating role of burnout. Journal of Nursing Management, 17, 331-339.
MaslachC.LeiterM. P. (1997). The truth about burnout: How organizations cause personal stress and what to do about it. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
51.
MaslachC.LeiterM. P. (2008). Early predictors of job burnout and engagement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 498-512.
52.
McLeanS.WadeT. D.EncelJ. S. (2003). The contribution of therapist beliefs to psychological distress in therapists: An investigation of vicarious traumatization, burnout, and symptoms of avoidance and intrusion. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 31, 417-428.
53.
MurrayM.LoganT.SimmonsK.KramerM. B.BrownE.HakeS.MadsenM. (2009). Secondary traumatic stress, burnout, compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction in trauma nurses. American Journal of Critical Care, 18(3), e1-e17.
54.
ParisM.HogeM. A. (2010). Burnout in the mental health workforce: A review. Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research, 37, 519-528.
55.
PhelpsA.LloydD.CreamerM.ForbesD. (2009). Caring for carers in the aftermath of trauma. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 18, 313-330.
56.
RegehrC.CadellS. (1999). Secondary traumas in sexual assault crisis work: Implications for therapists and therapy. Canadian Social Work, 1, 56-70.
57.
SchaufeliW.LeiterM. P.MaslachC.JacksonS. (1996). Maslach Burnout Inventory–general Survey. In MaslachC.JacksonS.LeiterM. P. (Eds.), The Maslach Burnout Inventory: Text manual (3rd ed., pp. 22-26). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
58.
SinghP.SuarD.LeiterM. P. (2012). Antecedents, work-related consequences, and buffers of job burnout among Indian software developers. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 19, 83-104.
59.
SimonC. E.PryceJ. G.RoffL. L.KlemmackD. (2006). Secondary traumatic stress and oncology social work: Protecting compassion from fatigue and compromising the worker’s worldview. Journal of Psychosocial Oncology, 23(4), 1-14.
60.
SprangG.ClarkJ. J.Whitt-WoosleyA. (2007). Compassion fatigue, compassion satisfaction, and burnout: Factors impacting a professional’s quality of life. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 12, 259-280.
StammB. H.VarraE.PearlmanL.GillerE. (2002). The helper’s power to heal and to be hurt-or helped-by trying. Washington, DC: National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology.
64.
SteedL.DowningR. (1998). A phenomenological study of vicarious traumatization amongst psychologists and professional counselors working in the field of sexual abuse/assault. Australian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies. Retrieved from http://www.massey.ac.nz/~trauma/issues/1998-2/steed.htm
65.
TarisT. (2000). A primer in longitudinal data analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
66.
WhiteD. (2006). The hidden costs of caring what managers need to know. Health Care Manager, 25, 341-347.
67.
YoderE. A. (2010). Compassion fatigue in nurses. Applied Nursing Research, 23, 191-197.
