Brief Communication – Compassion fatigue: Harnessing the strength within

Abstract

Oncology nursing has been identified as a high-risk area for compassion fatigue. More clearly understood as the combination of secondary traumatic stress and burnout, compassion fatigue impacts an individual physically, emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically (Todaro-Franceschi, 2019). Compassion fatigue is known to contribute to nurse turnover and negatively impact nurse retention, ultimately impacting the quality of patient care (Obiekwu et al., 2020). Recently, compassion fatigue, as a concept, has been under much scrutiny; the question has been raised whether this phenomenon is better labelled as empathetic distress. Despite conceptual questioning, the heart of the matter remains there is much that may result in co-suffering in oncology, leaving nurses who work in this specialty at high risk for emotional distress.