Determination of compassion fatique and coping styles with stress of nurses working at oncology and palliative care units

Objective: This study was carried out to determine the compassion fatigue and coping styles with stress of nurses working on oncology and palliative care patients Method: The population of the descriptive and cross - sectional study consisted of 150 nurses working at oncology and palliative care clinics of six hospitals, including two universities, three education and research and one state hospital in the province of Izmir, the sample consisted of 130 nurses, who accepted to participate in the study. The data were collected by the Nurse introductory form, the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL), and the Coping Style with Stress Scale. In the evaluation of data, number, percentage, t test, Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test and correlation analysis were used. Results: The mean compassion fatigue of the nurses is 17.34 ± 8.7, burnout 20.12 ± 6.70 and the mean of compassion satisfaction is 30.01 ± 9.46. In the study, a negative correlation was found between the mean scores of compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction of the nurses and it was found that there was a strong negative relationship between burnout and compassion satisfaction mean scores (p <0.05). The scale of nurses' coping styles with stress sub-scale mean scores were respectively, self confident approach 12.92 ± 3.73, helpless approach 8.41 ± 4.36, submissive approach 5.38 ± 3.01, optimistic approach 8.60 ± 2.51, and seeking of social support was 7.79 ± 2.10. There was a positive but weak correlation between compassion fatigue and helpless approach and submissive approach (p<0.05). The avarege compassion fatique scores of the nurses who did not receive traning on the management of the death/terminal process and the care process of oncology patients and also who do not like to take care of the patient needed palliative care and were affected by the patient they cared for were found to be high with a significant difference statistically (p <0.05). Conclusion: In our study, it is found that as the compassion fatigue of nurses increased, compassion satisfaction decreased but burnout increased. It can be said that the nurses who have high compassion satisfaction are better able to cope with stress, and nurses who are confident and optimistic in the opposite way experience less compassion fatigue, on the other hand nurses, who are in desperate and submissive approach, experience compassion fatigue, Key Words: Compassion fatigue, oncology, palliative care, professional quality of life, coping style with stress.