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BMC Palliative Care
Published in: BMC Palliative Care 1/2020

01-12-2020 | Burnout Syndrome | Research article

Compassion fatigue, watching patients suffering and emotional display rules among hospice professionals: a daily diary study

Authors: Igor Portoghese, Maura Galletta, Philip Larkin, Salvatore Sardo, Marcello Campagna, Gabriele Finco, Ernesto D’Aloja

Published in: BMC Palliative Care | Issue 1/2020

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Abstract

Background

Hospice workers are required to regularly use emotional regulation strategies in an attempt to encourage and sustain terminally ill patients and families. Daily emotional regulation in reaction to constantly watching suffering patients may be intensified among those hospice professionals who have high levels of compassion fatigue. The main object of this study was to examine the relationship between daily exposition to seeing patient suffering and daily emotional work, and to assess whether compassion fatigue (secondary traumatic stress and burnout) buffers this relationship.

Methods

We used a diary research design for collecting daily fluctuations in seeing patients suffering and emotional work display. Participants filled in a general survey and daily survey over a period of eight consecutive workdays. A total of 39 hospice professionals from two Italian hospices participated in the study.

Results

Multilevel analyses demonstrated that daily fluctuations in seeing patients suffering was positively related to daily emotional work display after controlling for daily death of patients. Moreover, considering previous levels of compassion fatigue, a buffering effect of high burnout on seeing patients suffering - daily emotional work display relationship was found.

Conclusions

A central finding of our study is that fluctuations in daily witness of patients suffering are positively related to daily use of positive emotional regulations. Further, our results show that burnout buffers this relationship such that hospice professionals with high burnout use more emotional display in days where they recurrently witness patients suffering.
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Metadata
Title
Compassion fatigue, watching patients suffering and emotional display rules among hospice professionals: a daily diary study
Authors
Igor Portoghese
Maura Galletta
Philip Larkin
Salvatore Sardo
Marcello Campagna
Gabriele Finco
Ernesto D’Aloja
Publication date
01-12-2020
Publisher
BioMed Central
Published in
BMC Palliative Care / Issue 1/2020
Electronic ISSN: 1472-684X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12904-020-0531-5

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