Examining of self-compassion and secondary traumatic stress on nurses WHO works on pediatric oncology/hematology

The first aim of this research was to determine the level of self compassion and secondary traumatic stress of nurses who works on paediatric oncology/hematology, and whether there is or not a difference between the average scores of some socio-demographic and professional characteristics, and self compassion and secondary traumatic stress. The second aim of the research was to reveal whether there is or not a relation between self compassion and secondary traumatic stress level. The definitive and relational study is conducted with 115 nurses working in three public universities, two foundation universities and six hospitals including one public hospital. "Personal Information Form", "Self-compassion Scale" and "Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale" were used as data collection tools. In the analyses of data, descriptive analyses, Kruskal Wallis test, Mann Whitney U Test; in independent groups, T-test, Bonferroni test and Spearman correlation analysis are used. In univariate analysis, multivariate retrospective linear regression analysis was used to measure the relationship between significant variables.The value of p<0.05 is considered as statically significant for all the tests. STSS average total point of nurses who are married, have a child, have a family member with a diagnosis of cancer, did not choose to work on field ofpaediatric oncology/haematology and are not happy to work on the field is determined as higher (p<0.05) while average total point of SCS of Nurses who are in the 19-24 age range, are single, have undergraduate and postgraduate diploma, do not have a child, have 1-3 years of working experience as a nurse, work on field of paediatric oncology/haematology for less than a year, are very pleased to be working on the field is determined as higher (p<0.05).As the duration of working as a nurse was found to be thenegative predictor of '' Self- Compassion Scale'' 'general', 'Self-Kindness Items' and 'awareness' subscale; working time in the field of child oncology/haematology was found as the negative predictor of the 'awareness of sharing' subscale, too. Also, the age of nurses is found as a predictor of "secondary traumatic stress" and avoidance subscale Analysis was used to investigate the relationship between scales. It was found that there was a statistically significant and average negative relationship between STSS and SCS.In the regression analysis conducted, it is determined that self-compassion, awareness and over-identification sub-scales are statistically significant on the secondary traumatic stress level (p<0.05), and it is also found that self-compassion sub-scale effects more than the other sub-scales on the secondary traumatic stress level (Beta:-0.903)" By the data obtained from this study, it is seen that as the self-compassion level of nurses increases the level of secondary traumatic stress level decreases. Thereby, it might be said that by applying attempts which enhance the level of self-compassion of nurses, the secondary traumatic stress level could be reduced.