An Educational Intervention to Combat Compassion Fatigue among Mental Health Care Workers

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this quality improvement project was to implement an evidence-based educational session on understanding and preventing compassion fatigue with mental health care clinicians and staff at an integrated healthcare clinic. The objective of this educational session was to improve participants’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes about compassion fatigue.Background: Compassion fatigue is an occupational hazard in healthcare, resulting in part from the stress of empathizing too much with traumatized patients. There is evidence that one-time educational interventions with healthcare workers in a range of roles and specialties can be effective at reducing the prevalence and severity of compassion fatigue. Methods: Nineteen pre-surveys were completed by participants, administered prior to attending a one-time educational presentation addressing understanding and protecting against compassion fatigue. The presentation had 24 participants, and 11 completed a post-survey after the presentation. Means were calculated for items on both the pre-and post-surveys, and the means of 11 pairs of items were compared between the two surveys. A percentage change from pre- to post-survey means was calculated for each pair. Results: The results were overall positive, with a 10% increase from the mean of pre-survey items to their post-survey counterparts. Comparisons within each item pair were also overall positive, with more than half of the pairs showing increases greater than 7%. The post-survey means for two of these item pairs increased by greater than 25%. No comparisons showed negative outcomes that decreased greater than 7%. Conclusions: This project was implemented as planned and was effective at achieving its purpose. Results of the project indicate that the education was effective at improving employees’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding compassion fatigue. Moreover, implementing this project attracted attention from site leaders and may have initiated changes to the clinic’s training policies to require regular education on the topics of personal mental health, compassion fatigue, and self-care. While the results of this project cannot be generalized to other sites, the success of this one-time educational intervention for compassion fatigue is consistent with evidence from scholarly research on the topic.