Combatting compassion fatigue: the care professional’s resilience program

26^th Global Nursing & Health Care Conference

May 06-07, 2019 | Rotterdam, Netherlands

Michelle Black

Elegrow Organization, Australia

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Nurs Care

Abstract :

The phenomenon of Compassion Fatigue (CF) also known as Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) is presented from the empirical research relating to CF among care professionals. The research uncovered, the symptoms, prevalence, risk factors and best practice interventions identified to alleviate individual experiences and symptoms of CF. Populations explored include; nursing, counselling, social work, hospice care, residential care, mental health and military health care professionals. The research and best practice interventions, informed the development of a combined intervention program to risk manage and alleviate experiences of CF among care professionals. An independent pilot study of the program facilitated using the Eagala Model found through an analysis of the variance between the pre and post-tests, found ProQOL scores for Compassion Fatigue and Burnout decreased whilst Compassion Satisfaction scores increased in addition to statistically significant improvement in overall emotional intelligence (p>0.05) and statistically significant improvements (p>0.05) in the emotional intelligence factors of emotion self-management, emotional expression, emotion self-control and emotion awareness of others. Understanding the increasing demands, high staff turnover and limited capacity to release care professionals from their workplace for professional development, the program is presented in a new interactive, mobile, on-line learning program with support resources. The program in the new mobile on-line mode increases opportunities for care professionals and their organizations to risk manage and combat compassion fatigue.

Biography :

Michelle Black is a Consultant, Educator and EAP Practitioner. As an Advocate for leveraging the evidence to solve industry problems, she developed Australia’s first evidence based program to combat compassion fatigue among care professionals and has more than 20 years’ experience leading organizational development in the commercial, government and not for profit sectors. She is a Registered Counsellor and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Training and Development. She has obtained Master of Counselling and a Graduate Certificate in Corporate Management. As an Advocate for people thriving in the workplace, she has presented research on Compassion Fatigue at a number of national and international conferences and published peer reviewed articles in the Counselling Australia Journal and the Australian New Zealand 17th International Mental Health Conference papers. As a PhD student at the University of Queensland, she continues to advance the research on interventions for Compassion Fatigue.

E-mail: m.black@elegrow.com.au