Date of Conferral
2021
Degree
Ph.D.
School
Psychology
Advisor
Charles T. Diebold
Abstract
The importance of caregiver empathy in positive client outcomes has been established in the literature. However, helping traumatized people has a potentially deleterious emotional effect on the helping professional, putting them at risk for compassion fatigue. The stress-process model provided the framework for the study. Survey data were collected from 138 immigrant African pastors in the United States. Compassion fatigue dimensions were measured by the Professional Quality of Life Scale, and empathy dimensions were measured by the Empathy Assessment Index. Results of multivariate canonical correlation analysis revealed that empathy predicts compassion fatigue susceptibility. Pastors who scored low on empathy subscales also tended to score high on burnout scale and secondary traumatic scale and low on pastoral self-esteem. Results further indicated that low empathy puts caregivers at risk for compassion fatigue. Findings may be used for positive social change by pastoral training programs to teach empathy as a protective factor for the prevention of compassion fatigue.
Recommended Citation
Meenu, Paul Affar, "Empathy and Risk for Compassion Fatigue Among Immigrant African Pastors in the United States" (2021). Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies. 10664.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/10664
