Programs that Can Support Nurses to Reduce Compassion Fatigue and Secondary Traumatic Stress: An Integrative Literature Review

Compassion allows a nurse to empathize with their patient and their family, but it does not prepare the nurse to cope with stressful events. Repeatedly being exposed to traumatizing events, pain, distress, and suffering can lead to nurse burn-out and fatigue. Compassion fatigue is a unique form of burnout and secondary traumatic stress (STS) encompasses ideas of compassion fatigue and the two terms are often used interchangeably. Objective: The goal of this systematic integrated literature review is to discover interventions to reduce compassion fatigue and STS in trauma nurses Methods: A systematic integrated literature review study was conducted using Ebscohost and PubMed databases to gather information. The keywords used to search these databases were (a) compassion fatigue, (b) secondary traumatic stress, and (c) nurse (d) intervention or (e) prevention which resulted in 10 articles. More research needs to be done to aid nurse managers and leaders in preventing compassion fatigue and STS. There are minimal studies done that depict the importance and significance of interventional programs within a hospital unit. In order to increase nursing staff and decrease staff turnover, it is important to address these topics. It has been shown that support groups, a healthy work environment, and positive social support can decrease compassion fatigue and STS; and in turn increase staff satisfaction. However, more studies need to be done to support this evidence.

Keywords: Compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, trauma nurses, intervention, prevention