Determination of compassion fatigue and affecting factors in physicians and nurses working in COVID-19 units

This study was carried out as descriptive in order to determine compassion fatigue and affecting factors in physicians and nurses working in COVID-19 units. The sample of the study consisted of 203 people (90 physicians and 113 nurses) who working in the COVID-19 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, Anesthesia, Chest and Neurology Intensive Care Units clinics where COVID 19 patients are hospitalized of Rize Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Education and Research Hospital. The data were collected with face to face interviews technique by using the "Structured Information Form" and the "Professional Quality of Life Scale" from April to September 2021. In the evalution of data were used number, percentage, mean, standard deviation, Skewness and Kurtosis test, t test, LSD, Dunnet C, Kruskall Wallis, Mann-Whitney U, Spearman Correlation Analysis and logistic regression analysis. In the study, high levels of compassion fatigue were found in 50% of the physicians and 48.7% of the nurses. The mean burnout score was found to be significantly higher in physicians than in nurses (p<0.05). It was determined that 60% of the physicians and 44.2% of the nurses had burnout. The mean compassion satisfaction score was found to be 31.11±8.18 in physicians and 29.48±8.27 in nurses. It was determined that 62.2% of the physicians and 72.6% of the nurses had low level of compassion satisfaction. It was found that "choosing the profession voluntarily, working time in the unit, the thought of leaving work due to the pandemic, and taking a break from working in the clinic as a method of self-relaxation" significantly affect Physicians' compassion fatigue on the other hand "listening to music as a way of relaxing themselves" affect nurses' compassion fatigue(p<0.05). It was determined that there was a positive correlation between the compassion fatigue and burnout levels; a negative correlation between compassion satisfaction and burnout levels of physicians and nurses (p<0.05). However, it was determined that the profession/degree of physicians and nurses was not a significant predictor of compassion fatigue (p>0.05), but was a significant predictor of compassion satisfaction and burnout levels (p<0.05).