Discussion on Theme 3: Team building and organisational support

This study has found that team building and organisational support can help nurses intervene against CF. The finding also relates to Marshman, Hansen and Munro (2022) as the authors have reported that building organisational resilience is a key strategy against CF, for which the workplace culture should be positive and sustainable leadership should be imitated by the peers of the healthcare system. This also complies with the theory of human resources management (HRM), as determined by Pariona‐Cabrera, Cavanagh and Bartram (2020) that the aim of HRM is to manage the workplace for the employees in a way that improves their performance and complies to their satisfaction. The authors have recommended that the healthcare organisations should consider the theory of HRM, to minimise the impact of stress, burnout and CF among nurse workforce, such as through training, emotional support, professional collaboration, maintaining good interpersonal relations with managers and supervisors and providing a positive, protective and social environment. This imitates that team building and a strong support from the organisations or senior members of the team can help the nurses, to combat the impact of compassion fatigue and to intervene against it.

Discussion on the themes for prevalence of CF:

Discussion on Theme 1: Speciality Areas

The first theme generated on the prevalence of CF among the nurses advocates that CF is highly prevalent among nurses working in speciality areas, where additional care is required by patients surviving in critical conditions, such as emergency wards, cancer wards or substance use wards. Xie et al. (2021) also complies with the findings as the authors have revealed that the ratio of CF is higher among nurses working in oncology wards. Similarly, Ma et al. (2022) have also reported that nurses working in emergency departments are more prone to CF. Therefore, the secondary references confirms that compassion fatigue is prevalent among nurses working in high-risk, intensive or additional care providing areas.

Discussion on Theme 2: Nurse Demographics

This theme focuses on the factor of demographics, which can contribute towards the prevalence of CF such as increased risk of CF in nurses at younger ages, and with lesser experience. Similarly, Cao and Gong (2021) have also reported that transition shocks among young nurses can result in higher levels of compassion fatigue, as young nurses are less resilient and flexible with their jobs than experienced nurses. Hence, the evidence supports the extracted findings of this theme, that nurse demographics play a potent role in the prevalence of compassion fatigue among nurses.

Summation/Conclusion:

This study was based on the theme of compassion fatigue among nurses, in which the focus of the research was to explore the causes, consequences, interventions and prevalence of compassion fatigue in nurses. To answer the research question, themes were generated for each clause using thematic analysis. The themes generated for the causes of compassion fatigue included the nature of the nursing profession, lack of peer support, lack of organisational resources and training of nurses, and emotional attachment of nurses to the patients. According to the extensive literature review search conducted in this study, it has been identified that these factors of found at a nursing workplace which are usually health care centers such as hospitals, clinics etc., can trigger compassion fatigue among nurses. Moreover, the identified factors are the most commonly occurring and highly reported factors of compassion fatigue. This shows that considering and eliminating such factors is important to reduce the prevalence of compassion fatigue among nurses, so that their workplaces can be a positive place for them.

The themes generated for the consequences of compassion fatigue included dissatisfaction, poor job performance, a desire to leave the job/profession, and emotional and physical health issues. This reveals that compassion fatigue not only harms the mental and emotional health of the nurses but also make them suffer physically. The identified consequences can play a highly significant role in the professional performance degradation of the nurses, and in making them physically weak, resulting in high turnover and reduced health outcomes of the patients and the healthcare organisations as well.

The themes extracted for the interventions of compassion fatigue included early identification of the signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue, education and awareness, self-care, team building and organisational support. However, the themes generated for the prevalence of compassion fatigue included factors such as nurse demographics and speciality areas. Moreover, it has also been identified that the healthcare organisations can consider theories such as the theory of human resource management, and the theory of change management to alter the organisational policies and make the workplace environment and culture optimistic and resilient for the nurses.

This has showed that compassion fatigue is more common in the nursing profession, and more likely young nurse experiences this condition. This is because the young or newly transitioned nurses are new to the environment and they focus on adjusting into the new work environment rather than focusing on the quality of care provided to the patients or their personal lives.  It has been concluded that the nurses who have gained a remarkable experience in the nursing profession, and are usually of an older age are less likely to experience the prevalence and impact of compassion fatigue. It has also been found that the nurses who works in a critical care providing environment such as mental health department, emergency department, substance use patients requiring additional care, or intensive care units, are more likely to face compassion fatigue in higher ratio as they work as a front line care provider with the patients. This contact with the patients results in emotional attachments or provokes the feelings of anger, frustration, dissatisfaction and disappointment, which altogether at a point contributes to the development of compassion fatigue. Moreover, it has also been found that organisational and peer support significantly impacts the levels of compassion fatigue on nurses. The nurse workforce can avoid the prevalence or lower the impact of compassion fatigue by self-care and building a string relationship with colleagues, however organisation can play its role in minimising compassion fatigue by educating and training nurses on the ways to combat compassion fatigue.