From compassion fatigue to compassion satisfaction: a conceptual development of enhancing well-being of Healthcare Professionals in Reproductive Health

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Reproductive healthcare professionals who specialized in Assisted Reproduction Technologies (ART), such as obstetricians and gynecologists, nurses and social workers, often deal with patients experiencing a wide array of physical and emotional reactions over fertility problems such as subfertility, miscarriage, involuntarily childlessness. They are expected to provide sensitive and timely care to patients and their family members. Increasingly stressful work environments, heavy caseloads with dwindling resources, negativity or emotional assault from patients will cause low job satisfaction or even compassion fatigue among them. As helping professionals, it is of crucial importance to moderate their attitude in face of high pressure working environment. While many researchers and practitioners have put high emphasis on the direction of dealing with Compassion Fatigue (CF), the model of Professional Quality of Life developed by Stamm and his associates has included one more important concept named as Compassion Satisfaction (CS), denoted as the pleasure you derive from being able to do health care work. This paper will describe a study aiming at enhancing the positivity involved in caring and the ability to receive gratification from caregiving among reproductive healthcare professionals. METHODS: In this quasi-experimental study, 25 healthcare practitioners (obstetricians and gynecologists, nurses, and social workers) from licensed ART clinics were recruited to join a nine-session professional development program which included components in terms of knowledge, attitude and practice, and self-reflective exercises like reflections on meaning of life, compassionate meditation, and mindfulness training. All participants were required to complete a self-administered questionnaire before (T0) and after the course (T1), which comprised of scales related to psychological wellbeing and Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQol), measuring related psychological wellbeing, as well as CS and CF. RESULTS: After completion of the course, it was found that the CS score of the participants was significantly increased (T0:33.94+4.4; T1:36.35+3.82, t=-3.29,p<0.001). No significant change was found in the CF score, which was defined as Secondary Trauma and Burnout under ProQol. In addition, participants who were younger in age and with lower educational level showed significant improvement in CS (t=-3.45,p<0.014). Those who worked longer time in medical settings (t=-5.196,p<0.035) but shorter in reproductive health settings (t=-3.042,p<0.014), and those who had religious belief (t=-7.071,p<0.002) showed significant improvement in CS as well. IMPLICATIONS: The professional development program was proven to be effective in enhancing practitioners’ professional quality of life in terms of CS, regardless of the score of CF being constant. In view of CF being an emphasis of many researches, enhancing CS provides a positive perspective in cultivating personal and professional satisfaction and positive feeling towards being care providers. It can prevent burnout, which subsequently enhance the quality of care to be received by patients. Thus, the study has shed light on the direction of professional training program for healthcare practitioners by including components regarding personal reflection on life and death, pain and suffering as well as vulnerabilities and resilience; this has also shifted the research and practice foci on enhancement of compassion satisfaction instead of putting tremendous resources on alleviation of compassion fatigue.