A Study on Compassion Fatigue in Health Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine compassion fatigue and its sub-dimensions in healthcare professionals on the basis of personal and professional information. The study designed as survey research involved 697 health professionals from a range of professions, mainly nurses, doctors, and midwives. The Compassion Fatigue-Short Scale and Personal Information Form prepared by the researchers were used as data collection instruments. The research data were collected through a digitally created questionnaire form. IBM SPSS 25.0 was used for data analysis. Independent groups t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Kruskal-Wallis H-test were used to answer the problems put forward in the research questions. It was found that compassion fatigue and its subscale scores differed significantly according to gender, education level, occupation, working time (night shift - day shift), intention to leave the job, perceived workload, and job stress. On the other hand, marital status and length of service did not lead to a significant difference in compassion fatigue and subscale scores. The results were discussed in light of the existing research, and recommendations were presented in the final section as part of the findings.