Abstract
This study examines the role of some personal and professional factors in compassion fatigue among health-care professionals. Research participants included 182 (89 mental and 93 medical) health-care professionals who completed an assessment battery measuring compassion fatigue, emotion management, trait emotional intelligence, situation-specific coping strategies, and negative affect. Major findings indicate that both self-report "trait" emotional intelligence and ability-based emotion management are inversely associated with compassion fatigue; adaptive coping is inversely related to compassion fatigue; and differences exist between mental and medical professions in emotional intelligence, coping strategies, and negative affect. Furthermore, problem-focused coping appears to mediate the association between trait emotional intelligence and compassion fatigue. These findings shed light on the role of emotional factors in compassion fatigue among health-care professionals. Beyond enhancing our knowledge of practitioners' professional quality of life, the current study serves as a basis for the early identification of groups of practitioners at risk for compassion fatigue.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 595-609 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Anxiety, Stress and Coping |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2013 |
Keywords
- compassion fatigue
- coping
- emotional intelligence
- empathy
- secondary traumatization
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
- Psychiatry and Mental health