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Oncology Nurse Compassion Fatigue Quality Improvement Proposal

In acute care oncology setting, compassion fatigue has been the issue nurses are facing. The oncology unit is where patients with cancer receive care intended to improve or cure their disease. The oncology unit provides treatment and may use therapies such as radiation and chemotherapy to treat patients with cancers. Conversely, this problem experienced by healthcare workers is a state of exhaustion and dysfunction as a result of prolonged exposure to compassion stress; fatigue, emotional distress, or apathy resulting from the constant demands of caring for others or the inability to react sympathetically to a crisis, disaster because of overexposure to previous crises, disasters, and so on. Compassion fatigue is a cumulative process that is felt beyond any particular relationship (Çıtak, 2018).

Compassion fatigue vulnerability includes exposure to daily barrage of traumatic material, empathy which means the greater the empathy the more effective the relationship and the greater the risk for it. Other factors include: emotional state, limited stress management, poor self care, poor support and disconnection with spirituality. A nurse manager who believes one of her staff nurses is experiencing this problem should initiate a discussion with this nurse about the possibility of compassion fatigue, inquire as to what might be done to help this nurse deal with the kinds of patient situations he/she is encountering, and provide opportunities for the nurses on the unit to attend continuing education programs on this issue(Taubert, 2019).

An example of professional compassion fatigue is when a nurse took care of a cancer patient and the patient later died; the nurse manager attempted to console the nurse but she didn’t want to indulge in feelings of sadness as she had additional patients. The nurse then said she was pre-occupied with thoughts of the patient and made a medical error and was late to work……….Read more

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