The effect of the short-term and long-term compassion fatigue resiliency program on the quality of life, perceived stress and psychological resilience of oncology-hematology nurses

Objective: This study was carried out as randomized-controlled, longitudinal interventional to determine the effect of compassion fatigue, burnout, compassion satisfaction, perceived stress and psychological resilience of nurses after applying the 'Compassion Fatigue Resiliency Programme'. It is also planned qualitative study to determine opinions and recommendations about programme. Method: The sample of the study consisted of 125 oncology-hematology nurses working in two private, one university hospitals. Hospitals were randomly assigned to experiment I (short term), experiment II (long term) and control groups. Measurements were made at pre-test, post-test, third month, sixth month and first year. Primary research hypotheses were tested with multilevel models (MLM). A total of 24 nurses, who participated in the training, formed the sample of the qualitative part Content analysis method was used to evaluate the qualitative data. Results: There was no statistically significant difference between the mean scores of compassion fatigue, burnout, perceived stress and psychological resilience of the nurses in the short-term, long-term and control groups. The mean compassion satisfaction score of the nurses in the short-term and long-term education group was statistically significantly higher than nurses in the control group. The mean compassion satisfaction scores of the nurses in both the short and long-term education groups were statistically significantly higher in the sixth month and first year follow-up measurements than the pre-test mean scores of nurses in control group. Six themes were obtained from the qualitative study: 'awareness', 'not for others, for me', 'I am not the only one', 'coping', 'the quality of education program' and 'dilemma for participation in education program'. Conclusion: In this study, it was determined that there was no effect of long-term and short-term education on compassion fatigue, burnout, perceived stress and psychological resilience of nurses, but these two educations were effective on compassion satisfaction. It is the first study with randomized-controlled method, including the follow-up of up to a year. Doing new studies that are revealing the the effect of this education can be suggested. Keywords: Oncology-haematalogy nurses, compasson fatigue, burnout, compassion satisfaction, perceived stress, resilience, qualitative study