Investigating the mediating roles of psychological resilience and sensitivity on the effects of empathy and sympathy on compassion fatigue in special education and rehabilitation center employees

The professionals who work at special education and rehabilitation centers are directly or indirectly witness to difficulties that individuals with special needs and their families live, originating from various variables such as diagnostics, affection level of diagnostics onset, and life histories. This witnessing could be corrosive for professionals. The study aimed to examine the mediating role of sensitivity and psychological resilience on the relationship between empathy-sympathy levels and compassion fatigue of the professionals who work at special education and rehabilitation centers. The participants included 303 individuals between the age of 21-65. The convenient sampling method was used to collect the data. The data were collected using the Personal Information Form, the Compassion Scale, the Adolescent Measure of Empathy and Sympathy Scale (AMES), the Brief Resilience Scale, and the Professional Quality of Life Scale. Mplus version 7 and SPSS 27.0 package programs were used to analyze data. A path analysis was conducted to test the mediating roles of sensitivity and psychological resilience on the effects of empathy-sympathy on compassion fatigue. The independent sample t-test, one-way ANOVA, correlation, and regression analyses were conducted to examine whether compassion fatigue differed according to demographic variables. There was no significant relationship between sympathy and compassion fatigue, while there was a negative relationship between empathy and compassion fatigue. Psychological resilience played a partial mediator role on the relationship between empathy and compassion fatigue. There was no mediator role of sensitivity. Regarding differences based on demographic variables, female participants had higher compassion fatigue than male participants. In addition, the results showed that compassion fatigue decreases as the satisfaction of being in this sector increases.