Personal factors related to compassion fatigue in health professionals |
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| Authors: | Moshe Zeidner Dafna Hadar Gerald Matthews Richard D Roberts |
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| Institution: | 1. Laboratory for Research in Personality, Emotions, and Individual Differences, University of Haifa, IsraelZeidner@Research.haifa.ac.il;3. Laboratory for Research in Personality, Emotions, and Individual Differences, University of Haifa, Israel;4. Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati, OH, USA;5. Educational Testing Service, Princeton, NJ |
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| 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. |
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| Keywords: | compassion fatigue secondary traumatization emotional intelligence empathy coping |
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