The relationship between empathic tendency and professional sati̇sfaction, exhausti̇on and compassion fatigue in nurses

This descriptive study was conducted to determine the level of empathic tendency, professional satisfaction, burnout and compassion fatigue in nurses and to examine the relationship between these variables. The population of the study consisted of nurses serving in Niğde Ömer Halisdemir Training and Research Hospital, and the study was completed with 345 nurses who provided direct patient care and accepted to participate in the study. The data were collected using the Personal Information Form, Empathic Tendency Scale and Professional Quality of Life Scale, which were prepared by the researchers in line with the relevant literature. The relationship between the numerical data obtained from the study was evaluated by Spearman Correlation Analysis, and the difference between the groups was evaluated by Mann-Whitney U and Kruskall Wallis tests. The mean total score of the Empathic Tendency Scale (ETS) of the nurses participating in the study was 69.74±10.68, the mean score of the Occupational Satisfaction Subdimension of the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL) was 31.71±9.86, the mean score of the Burnout Subdimension was 19.62±6.41, and the mean score of the Compassion Fatigue Subdimension was 19.29±6.41. While a statistically significant relationship was found between the ETS and the ProQOL Occupational Satisfaction Subdimension at a positive high level (r=.650, p<0.05), a statistically significant relationship was found between the ETS and the ProQOL Burnout Subdimension at a negative high level (r=-.607, p<0.05), no statistically significant relationship was found between the ETS and the ProQOL Compassion Fatigue Subdimension (r=-.041, p>0.05). It was found that the mean score of the ETS was statistically significantly higher in nurses whose gender was female, who worked only during the daytime, who chose the profession willingly, who were satisfied with their profession, who did not think of leaving the profession, who felt competent in understanding patients, who thought that they were compassionate in daily life and professional life, who were affected by the pain of the patients they cared for, and who did not feel occupational burnout. It was found that the Professional Satisfaction Sub-dimension of the ProQOL was affected by willingly choosing the profession, being satisfied with the profession, thinking of leaving the profession, feeling competence in understanding patients, thinking that they are compassionate in their daily and professional life, being affected by the suffering of patients under care and feeling professional burnout. It was found that the Burnout Sub-dimension of the ProQOL was affected by willingly choosing the profession, being satisfied with the profession, thinking of leaving the profession, feeling competence in understanding patients, thinking that they are compassionate in their daily and professional life, being affected by the suffering of the patients under care, experiencing compassion fatigue and feeling occupational burnout. On the other hand, it was determined that the Compassion Fatigue Sub-dimension of the ProQOL was affected by thinking that they were compassionate in their daily life, being affected by the suffering of the patients under care, being emotionally exhausting of the compassion shown to the patients, experiencing compassion fatigue and the preferred strategy to cope with compassion fatigue. The results show that the quality of professional life of nurses should be improved in order for the nursing care to be more qualified. For this, it can be said that necessary institutional arrangements such as break opportunities, rotations, work area changes, and organisation of working hours should be made.